Bringing the Railway to Daming

Chapter 344: Lao Zhu: We've Been Cheated for Twenty Years? Jian Yi [Subscription Request]

Zhu Tan has been in charge of the Six Gates for two years and has a good understanding of detective work and investigation.

He made a gesture, and the other seven guards dispersed and pretended to be pedestrians. Only Lian Qing followed him and entered the teahouse.

This kind of roadside teahouse is only one floor high, with an inner hall and a tea shed for tea drinkers to sit. In hot weather, tea drinkers prefer to sit outside, but in winter, tea drinkers naturally prefer to sit inside.

When Zhu Tan entered, the place was almost full, so he sat down at the only remaining table.

If he were in this kind of environment a few years ago, he would definitely be disgusted and would never want to come in.

But later on, Zhu Yuanzhang changed the education of the princes and grandchildren. They had to do their own housework every day, farm regularly, and if they made a mistake, they had to fetch manure... In addition, after two or three years in the army, Zhu Tan now has a high tolerance for food, clothing, housing and transportation.

He casually ordered a pot of hot tea and three snacks, and then listened attentively to the conversation in the teahouse.

One of them had a loud voice, so he could hear it outside the teahouse.

The loud voice said, "The household clerk, Lu Gao, is not only a branch of the Lu family, but also the son-in-law of the Wu family. Both the Wu and Lu families are among the largest landowners in Changshu, each owning at least tens of thousands of acres of fertile land."

"The land survey is done by the household department. Who would believe you if you said there was nothing fishy going on?"

Another person said, "The laws are very strict nowadays, far more so than Hu Yuan's. How dare Lu Tao bend the law for personal gain?"

"It's only when they find out that he's abusing the law for personal gain. If they can't find out at all, who can do anything to him?"

"This is the once-in-a-decade land reclamation, how could they not find out?"

He sneered loudly, "Do you think measuring the land is easy? Apart from those old accountants and clerks who have worked in the household department for many years, few outsiders can understand it."

"That was exactly what happened during the land reclamation ten years ago. The officials sent from above claimed to be fair and honest, but in the end they found nothing, leaving the accountants and clerks to laugh at them."

"Brother Zhang is indeed a former county official, knowing so many secrets..."

Hearing this, Zhu Tan was thoughtful.

He really didn't know the difficulty of land survey before. He thought it was just to let officials measure and calculate the people's fields again and then update the fish scale book.

Now it seems that there are probably quite a few issues to be considered.

He immediately walked over to the loudmouth's desk, bowed, sat down, and asked with a smile, "From what you said, I seem to know quite a bit about land reclamation. Could I ask you a few questions?"

The loud man looked at Zhu Tan and asked curiously, "You are a scholar, right? How could you be interested in this kind of thing?"

Zhu Tan said, "We study to become officials, so naturally we are interested in government affairs."

After saying that, he asked Lian Qing to bring the good tea and snacks he ordered, and poured a cup of tea for the loudmouth.

Seeing this, the loud man said, "You'll understand if you go to the fields. Fields come in all shapes and sizes. Not everyone can measure the acres."

"The veteran officials of the Hufang Office have family traditions and understand this, but the high-ranking officials sent from above may not understand it. So, isn't it the Hufang Office that determines how much land each household has?"

Zhu Tan said, "As far as I know, the officials in charge of land surveying will conduct random inspections. If there are any errors, it will be a serious matter. Aren't they afraid of being exposed?"

"Spot checks?" The loud voice sneered. "Even if the official sent from above knows how to do land surveying, how can he know which plot of land belongs to which family when he gets to the fields? He still has to listen to the accounts of the household clerks and the local people."

"In short, there are a lot of tricks in this land survey..."

The loudmouth was a chatterbox and had a bit of hatred towards Lu Tao, the household clerk in Changshu, so without Zhu Tan asking any more questions, he told him all the tricks of the land survey that he knew.

Zhu Tan was shocked after hearing this, and only then did he realize that grassroots civil affairs work is not easy.

However, Zhu Tan did not completely believe the loudmouth, so he followed the plan and found an inn in Changshu County with his guards to stay in. Then, he spent a few days investigating the county as a young master of a wealthy family and a scholar from outside the area.

It turned out that although what the loud-voiced man said was not entirely true, it was right for about eight out of ten times.

Finally, he walked around the countryside of Changshu and found that the fields had some strange shapes, making it difficult to measure and calculate the area.

As the most intelligent of the Zhu brothers, and having studied mathematics and natural sciences for several years in the Great Hall, Zhu Tan quickly figured out a way to deal with the situation. He immediately wrote a memorial and had it sent back to the capital...
···
Capital.

Forbidden City, Fengxian Hall.

Zhu Yuanzhang took out a memorial and asked Li Gui to pass it to Zhu Biao, saying with a smile: "This old man has not served in vain in the past few years. He is really capable of doing things."

Zhu Biao took the memorial and quickly flipped through it, and found that it contained several suggestions from Zhu Tan on "surveying the land."

Zhu Tan first recounted his experiences in Changshu, then summarized some of the problems encountered in the previous land survey, and finally included his suggestions. After reading it, Zhu Biao sighed, "I didn't expect that the land survey would have so many problems. I'm afraid these problems are not unique to this area, but similar issues exist everywhere."

"In this case, the authenticity of the fish scale books obtained by the court during the two previous major land surveys is questionable."

Zhu Yuanzhang's smile faded, and he snorted, "When I was farming with your grandfather in Fengyang, I knew that most of those petty officials were deceiving their superiors, colluding with local tyrants, and exploiting the people."

"We originally thought that the Hu Yuan court was dark and chaotic, allowing these people to do whatever they wanted. Now it seems that they are simply deceitful and greedy by nature, and it's hard to change their old habits!"

Zhu Biao was afraid that Zhu Yuanzhang would kill all the officials at once, so he said immediately: "Not all the officials in the local government offices are so corrupt and abuse their power for personal gain. I believe there must be some upright people."

"Especially a few years ago, the imperial court reformed the civil service system and relaxed the restrictions on official promotions. Many scholars entered the government as officials, so these people should not be too deeply involved in bad habits."

Zhu Yuanzhang stood up, his hands behind his back, and said, "Regardless of how deep the bad habits are, this time we will follow the tenth master's method - send supervising officials to the various prefectures in Zhili to recruit students from other prefecture schools to form a land reclamation team."

"We will also select some students from the Imperial College who are good at mathematics to form a land surveying team to visit various prefectures to conduct random inspections and verify the land survey results."

"In addition, have the Jinyiwei in various places mobilized to hand over intelligence on the local gentry to the land survey officials, who will conduct targeted inspections of the actual land area."

"Anyone who commits fraud in the land survey will have their property confiscated and be exiled overseas. No mercy will be shown!"

Although Zhu Biao felt that exile overseas was a harsh punishment, he did not speak out to dissuade him.

Because he knew very well that if the problem of falsification in land surveys could not be solved, it would be difficult to curb land annexation.

Land annexation was the fundamental reason for the demise of the Ming Dynasty in history.

If he is soft-hearted towards these corrupt officials and gentry, he will be irresponsible to the Ming Dynasty...

The administrative efficiency of the Hongwu Dynasty was quite fast.

On the second day, a series of government decrees were delivered from the capital by fast horses and fast boats to the various prefectures in Zhili, and were delivered to the officials who were in charge of land surveying and the distribution of land tax in each prefecture.

In fact, Lao Zhu had long suspected that there was something fishy about the previous land surveys, but it was difficult to find evidence.

Firstly, he had not yet established the Jinyiwei at that time. Although there were people in his personal army who were responsible for gathering intelligence, they were all from the army. Not to mention mathematics, they could not even recognize many words, so it was naturally difficult for them to investigate the tricks in the land survey.

Secondly, the results of the previous surveys showed that the number of acres of land had been increasing "substantially." Under these circumstances, even if he had some doubts about the results, they were fleeting and he did not intend to delve into them.

But now it is different - since he knows the evils of land annexation, he naturally takes this matter seriously.

Therefore, he put a lot of effort into the officials he sent to various prefectures to supervise the work.

The chief and second officials were both Jinshi who had passed the previous two imperial examinations. One had served in the Ministry of Revenue (internship), and the other was a young censor from the Censorate.

In addition, a group of clerks from the Ministry of Revenue and students who were about to graduate from the Imperial College were transferred to assist them (Taishang students also had to do an internship before they could graduate and be appointed as officials. This system ran parallel to the imperial examination system).

These young officials have not yet been infected by some bad habits in the officialdom, and they are just and passionate, making them the most suitable to be sent to investigate local problems.

Ningguo Mansion.

Xuancheng.

In the county government office, Jian Yi, the Imperial Censor of Qingtian, looked through the new fish-scale book handed in by He Yao, the head clerk of the household department, and frowned slightly.

Xuancheng is the seat of Ningguo Prefecture and is also a superior county with many fields.

Compared with the one ten years ago, the new fish scale book that He Yao gave him only added a few dozen hectares of farmland.

Before coming, he did a lot of homework, reading the relevant documents of the Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of Personnel, and learned about some of the political achievements reported by several county magistrates in Xuancheng in the past ten years, including how much farmland was added through restoration of cultivation and reclaiming wasteland.

He was a Jinshi in the 18th year of Hongwu, and had an amazing memory, so he wrote down those numbers.

After making some mental estimates, he immediately looked at the clerk He Yao with scrutiny and said, "As far as I know, in the 13th year of the Hongwu reign, Xuancheng County Magistrate Liu Wei was rated as an excellent official. One of his major achievements was the restoration of 83 hectares (one hectare = 100 mu) of wasteland to cultivation."

"In the 17th year of the Hongwu reign, Xuancheng County Magistrate Li Dun received an excellent evaluation. Among his achievements was the construction of ditches, ponds and weirs, which increased paddy fields by 75 hectares."

"I won't give you all the other examples, but in short, over the past ten years, Xuancheng County should have added at least 300 hectares of farmland. Why does your fish-scale register only show an increase of 56 hectares?"

　Second update.

　　Good night~
　　Correct the typo later

　　
　
(End of this chapter)