Chapter 248 Beating the local tyrants
Yang Xu looked at Su Duan (the impartial and selfless local judge) and said angrily:
"Su Hu Cao, the land of my Yang family is all registered and granted, and you have checked it many times. Why did you rush into our farm today?"
Yang Xu looked at the guards around Su Duan. They were burly and strong, with murderous eyes. They were obviously elite soldiers who had seen blood on the battlefield.
But Yang Xu was not afraid of armed conflict because he also had farmhands on his farm.
Moreover, once the news of Su Ze seizing the land of the wealthy families spread out, all the wealthy families in Liangzhou would follow him in rebelling against Su Ze.
This is Yang Xu’s confidence.
Although the powerful families during the Northern and Southern Dynasties were not as powerful as those during the Wei and Jin Dynasties, they were not the landlords who allowed themselves to be manipulated by the imperial power after the Song Dynasty.
Just to say one thing, they have land, food and private soldiers.
The most famous example of the confrontation between the powerful families and the imperial power is Emperor Guangwu of Han.
Liu Xiu conquered the world with the support of the powerful families. It was a series of turmoil during the Wang Mang period that made the powerful families in the world stand on the side of the Liu family again.
After Emperor Guangwu came to power, he conducted several land surveys and household inspections to compare the people.
The so-called land measurement, like land census, is a national survey and statistics of the land.
The "Anhubimin" system, also known as "Anbi", is the household registration system promoted by Su Ze. This system had already appeared in the Qin Dynasty. It uses counties as units to count the increase and decrease of registered population in the jurisdiction, which is the ancient population census.
The counties and kingdoms of the Eastern Han Dynasty then conducted random checks and statistics on the population increase and decrease, a work also known as "Shangji".
However, when Liu Xiu, the founding emperor, did such a thing, he still encountered huge resistance.
The falsified data in the report was reported directly to Emperor Guangwu, who was naturally furious and ordered a thorough investigation.
But the result was that although Emperor Guangwu executed more than a dozen county magistrates who had falsified land measurements, a large-scale rebellion soon broke out across the country, and Emperor Guangwu had to send envoys to appease the people. In the end, the two tasks of land measurement and case comparison gradually became a formality.
The powerful families in the early Eastern Han Dynasty were still weaker than those in the Northern and Southern Dynasties.
Although Emperor Guangwu gained the world easily, he was also an emperor who had fought in wars and had superb political skills.
Su Ze was going to risk the wrath of the world by directly seizing land from the wealthy families. This went against the mainstream consensus of the era, and the result would be unrest among the wealthy families in various places. This was not a problem that could be solved by killing one or two people.
The Hanzhong nobles like Yang Xu understood this point, so they were fearless.
Su Duan said with a cold face:
"The Yang family's land is indeed registered. This farm is the family's ancestral land, right?"
Yang Xu immediately said:
"The hereditary land can be passed down to descendants. This is clearly stated in Emperor Xiaowen's land grant order!"
Seeing Yang Xu bring up the "Land Granting Order", Su Yuan (a "clerk who sticks to principles") stood up:
"But Emperor Xiaowen's decree on granting land says, 'All mulberry fields are inherited and will never be returned.' The inherited land that will never be returned is mulberry fields, but the land of your Yang family farm is not mulberry fields at all!"
Yang Xu was stunned for a moment, and he looked at several members of the clan who had once served as lawyers.
The faces of these young men also changed. Liangzhou had inherited and traded ancestral land for a long time, and they no longer cared whether it was mulberry fields or not.
Yang Xu's face turned pale. His family used the judicial system to oppress the people. This was the first time he encountered the situation of being oppressed by someone manipulating the judicial system.
However, Yang Xu, the head of the second branch of the Yang family, Yang Shu, said:
"My Yang family has not allocated enough land. Whether it is open-air or mulberry fields, these fields should belong to our Yang family!"
Su Duan took out an account book and said:
"The registered population of the Yang family, including slaves and maids, totals 11,321 people, and 320,700 acres of land have been granted. All the land granted is real."
Yang Shu’s face turned pale and he retreated instantly.
Yang Xu was startled again. Su Ze was trapping people with a myriad of tricks!
First, let people declare the number of slaves in their families, and then use this number to trace back the number of acres of land, and pick out the hereditary land that does not comply with the regulations and confiscate it.
After all this, the government can be said to be completely right.
The government has long notified your Yang family to report the number of slaves and servants, but you refused to report the number of people you hid.
The number of slaves and servants you reported was calculated based on the land area. The government will now calculate it for you as well, kick out the illegal hereditary land in your family and take it back.
This person is not a crude warrior at all, but a shrewd old bureaucrat. He has always stood on the moral high ground in every step, leaving the other wealthy families in Hanzhong speechless.
Yang Xu calmed down and said:
"Su Hucao, I still have some slaves in my family that I haven't reported yet. Can I report them now?"
Su Duan said calmly:
"of course can."
Yang Xu said:
"That's all, once we've replenished the number of slaves, these fields will still belong to our Yang family."
But Su Duan said:
"No."
"Why not?"
Su Duan said: "The general has ordered that the land should be granted in order. Now the newly registered population in Liangzhou needs to be granted land, so after taking back the land of the Yang family, we should grant it to those who need it."
"As for the newly registered slaves of the Yang family, they will be granted after the land is vacated."
In this way, Yang Xu's defense was completely broken!
Aren’t the newly registered population the slaves and servants registered by the powerful people in Liangzhou?
Su Ze used his own land to bribe other wealthy families, allowing them to benefit from the Yang family's losses!
As for the wealthy families in Hanzhong, will they refuse because of the "alliance" of the wealthy families?
How can it be?
Land is something that all families are pursuing. If the patriarch of any family dares to push away the land that is delivered to his door, he will be cursed to death by his clansmen! In the final analysis, Su Ze was not targeting the wealthy families in Liangzhou.
Instead of issuing a new decree, he reiterated the "Land Granting Order" that the Northern Wei nobles had been playing with for twenty years.
The Yang family's land was taken away simply because the Yang family was "not technically competent" and their research on the laws was not as good as Su Ze's, which gave Su Ze the opportunity to openly confiscate their ancestral land.
At this time, the so-called community of powerful families no longer existed, and the Yang family became the fat sheep for everyone to share.
The atmosphere in the manor was very tense. Su Duan and Su Yuan stood where they were, and the elite guards behind them drew their swords to protect them.
Yang Xu's face remained unchanged. This farm employed more than a hundred servants. As long as he gave the order, these servants would rush over with weapons and drive away Su Duan and Su Yuan.
But Yang Xu didn't dare.
He suddenly realized that his previous tactics of threatening Fu Shuyan with violence, such as threatening to overturn the table, were useless in front of Su Ze.
It is even possible that Su Ze is looking forward to taking action himself!
If Su Ze was given a reason to take action, the Yang family would lose more than just these farms.
Yang Xu finally held back. Under the current situation, he could only bow his head.
After Yang Xu left, Su Duan sneered, and the soldiers who were ambushing outside the manor quickly entered the manor.
These soldiers were not the Longxi soldiers brought by Su Ze, but the soldiers from the prefectures and counties under Fu Shuyan's command.
These soldiers from various states and counties had once followed Yang Kan into battle, and these one hundred soldiers were all brave warriors who had made outstanding contributions.
Su Duan said:
"From today on, the land of this farm is yours."
"Everyone follow me to the fields right now. We will place the boundary markers and register them today!"
The soldiers couldn't believe their ears.
In Liangzhou, those who served as soldiers in the prefectures and counties were either children of poor families or barbarians recruited by Fu Shuyan.
There was serious land annexation in Liangzhou, and they never expected to be granted land.
After Su Ze took over Liangzhou, he never delayed the payment of silk rewards, which made the soldiers very grateful.
But today the policy of awarding land for military merit was also implemented, and all the soldiers excitedly shouted Su Ze's name.
Su Duan was a fair person and quickly distributed most of the land on the farm.
Although the legal requirement of granting each soldier 40 acres of land was not met due to land shortage, each soldier was allocated land that matched his military merit.
Su Duan registered and completed the land distribution quickly, and then called over several small wealthy families in the surrounding area and distributed the land in the corners of the farm to them.
These small noble families were naturally ecstatic.
When the Yang family of Hanzhong annexed land, they not only annexed self-cultivating farmers, but also many weaker wealthy families as their targets.
The small wealthy families that Su Ze found had all had lawsuits over property with the Yang family. They wished that all of the Yang family’s land would be confiscated by the government.
Then, almost overnight, gossip about the Yang family's failure spread quickly in Liangzhou.
In these stories, the Liangzhou government was the good guy who gave the Yang family countless opportunities, but the Yang family missed each opportunity due to greed, and finally had their illegal hereditary land taken back by the government according to law.
Other wealthy families in Liangzhou gloated over the disaster and replanted mulberry trees on their ancestral fields, while the merchants selling mulberry seedlings all raised their prices.
The Liangzhou nobles cursed inwardly. Although the prices these merchants asked for were high, compared with the loss of Shitian when the government took back their land, they had to grit their teeth and pay that little money.
In the Yang Family Ancestral Hall, members of the Yang clan were arguing endlessly, and Yang Xu just felt his head buzzing.
"Quiet!"
Yang Xu roared, and the remaining power of the clan leader finally made everyone quiet down.
Yang Xu cleared his throat and said:
"I have sent people to Chang'an to appeal to Commander Xiao!"
Everyone's eyes lit up. It was useless to file this lawsuit at the prefecture and county level because Liangzhou had already been controlled by Su Ze.
But Su Ze is not a local tyrant, he also has superiors.
Moreover, I heard that the Western Expedition Commander Xiao Baoyin and Su Ze did not get along well, so it might be useful to go to Xiao Baoyin to plead for justice.
Yang Xu saw that his delaying tactic had succeeded, so he continued:
"Su Ze is targeting our entire Yang family. The land lost this time should be divided equally among the branches."
After Yang Xu finished speaking, the several families who had just been talking about "ancestral heritage" and calling on everyone to unite to resist Su Ze all moved away.
Among the fields lost this time, the most land belonged to the direct lineage. Now Yang Xu shamelessly asked each branch to share the loss equally, which was equivalent to sharing the loss of the direct lineage with everyone.
Why don’t you share the meat with everyone when you eat it?
But now the foreign enemies are powerful, and without the leadership of the direct line, the Yang family is simply unable to fight back.
Yang Xu confidently said:
"Before Chang'an responds, everyone must behave themselves and avoid conflicts with the government."
After the meeting in the ancestral hall was over, Yang Shu, the head of the second branch, returned home.
He asked his servants to call the "envoy from Southern Liang" who had come to his house a few days ago.
I have something to do outside today, so I’m sorting out the plot in my mind. If I don’t have time in the evening, I’ll update later.
Tomorrow will be updated as normal
(End of this chapter)