Zhang Huangyan sat behind the copywriter and looked at the stack of documents in front of him.

This is a memorial submitted by Yang Sichang regarding the implementation of land distribution in Jiangnan.

Land reform was tried out in Jiangnan very early, but met with strong opposition from the scholar-bureaucrats. In some places, there were even tragedies in which the doors and windows were blocked in the middle of the night, farmers' thatched houses were set on fire, and farmers' families were burned alive inside.

Government orders do not go to the countryside. This has been a tradition for thousands of years before the Ming Dynasty.

The imperial court dispatched officials. The lowest level was the seventh-rank county magistrate, and the remaining eighth- and ninth-rank officials were usually called subordinates. These officials usually could only control the order of the county. As for the ten miles and eight townships outside the county, it was entirely up to one person.

The local gentry and elders manage it.

These clan elders have considerable power. Once something unethical happens in the village, they will often not complain to the officials. As long as the clan elders determine that the facts are true, the unruly men and women will be put into pig cages and submerged in the pond.

Such major judicial rights are within their control, let alone other matters.

Even when the imperial court had to pay taxes, the county magistrate had to summon these elders and distribute the tasks to each village. It can be said that in the Ming Dynasty, in addition to cities, the vast rural areas were ruled by such a group of people! In the villages, they

He has absolute authority and can decide anything. He is like a local emperor!

Of course, there are benefits to doing this. At least it can effectively reduce the number of officials, which can also reduce the financial burden.

Thousands of years before the Ming Dynasty, the Chinese dynasties had this structure.

Now Yang Sichang has decided to change. Since there are already examples in Shandong and Hebei, it is not a big deal to implement it in Jiangnan. The land rules your life. If you don't hand over the land, your life will be forfeited.

Zhang Huangyan looked at these documents, and he knew that once implemented, the consequences would be a sea of ​​blood. Shandong implemented the land order and distributed the land of landlords to farmers. Who wants to watch their land being divided and retaliate secretly?

Things happened frequently. Just like Jiangnan, some farmers were burned alive in their homes.

Later, Li Xiao simply sent troops and led people to fight against the landlords from village to village. Not only did he want to eliminate the landlords physically, but he also wanted to defeat those landlords mentally. It doesn't matter what you have done, what matters is that your family is a landlord.

As long as your family is a landlord, you will be tested by blood and fire.

Men! Women! Old people! Even the dolls in their arms cannot escape death.

All this is done by farmers who are motivated!

Peasants have this motivation because the government allocates land to them. No matter who the previous owner of the land is, if the government says this land is yours, then it will be yours from now on. You no longer have to pay tenant rent, you only need to pay rent to the court.

Just pay the tax.

The difference between the court and the landlords is that in disaster years, the court will reduce taxes and distribute money and food. In good years, the court will not try every means to increase the rent.

In fact, this method is to eliminate thousands of small landowners and merge the entire country into one big landowner. Everyone only needs to pay taxes to this big landowner!

Shandong and Hebei carried out land reform, and the effect was very good. The power of the local gentry was wiped out, but the cost was huge. The rural moral system established over thousands of years was also wiped out by the cruel land reform.

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Without the control of the squires, the court can only use people who can control the ground as village chiefs. Most of these people are the original local ruffians. Because they can fight and have gangs, they can effectively manage the place. Although

This kind of management is not clean, but it is quite quiet.

The result is that there are many gangsters and bullies in the countryside. In places like Shandong and Hebei, nine out of ten people will file complaints against these people.

Zhang Huangyan is very clear about the pros and cons of this, but now in Jiangnan, land reform must be carried out. First, smash the things left over for thousands of years, and then slowly strengthen management. We cannot let these squires continue to make trouble!

He took the top piece of paper from the document, picked up the pen and wrote a big word "K". Then he stamped his seal and handed it to the waiting pen-tie-shi, asking him to give it to Yang Sichang who was waiting outside.

It wasn't that Zhang Huangyan was too proud, but that he didn't want to see Yang Sichang's excited eyes.

Zhang Huangyan knew that Yang Sichang had suffered from being bullied by these people in the past few years. Now that he was allowed to let go, he didn't know how many innocent souls there were in this land of Jiangnan.

Sure enough, the document fell into Yang Sichang's hands. Seeing the word "ke", Yang Sichang's eyes shone with excitement.

The team has long been prepared to start land reform with Jinling as the center.

The so-called land reform is to send troops to the countryside to forcibly confiscate the land of the landlords. Then measure the land and distribute the land to the farmers. In order to completely overthrow the prestige of the gentry and landlords, under the threat of black holes, the farmers will stand up and fight against the landlords.

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Some people are activists who have been found in advance. They will take the lead in torturing the landlords until they are tortured to death. This is what Shandong and Hebei did. Yang Sichang observed with the team at the time. He concluded that this method was very effective.

As for how many people will die and whether it will corrupt the country's legal system, that is beyond the scope of Yang Sichang's consideration. The main purpose now is to control Jiangnan and pacify it, so that Jiangnan can become a source of finance and taxation for the empire, rather than a waste.

Unstable areas of the Imperial Defense Force.

Hundreds of land reform teams were immediately released. According to the plan, these people started from the vicinity of Jinling and raided villages one by one. Behind each team were dozens of soldiers.

Every time they went to a place, they would first arrest the landlords and gentry. Then, according to the standards given by Yang Sichang, the composition of everyone in the village would be assessed.

People who have been poor farmers for eight generations and have no land at all are definitely poor farmers. People with a little land will be rated as middle peasants. People who have a lot of land and live a good life are rich farmers. People who have a lot of land and have long-term workers are employed at home.

People, that is, landlords, need to be attacked.

The madness begins!

The landlords were arrested and wore tall hats on their heads. Some of the more bad-tempered people made a pair of wooden plaques weighing more than ten kilograms and hung them around the necks of the landlords. They also used thin wires to hang them.

On the neck, thin wires were cut into the flesh, and the blood marks on the neck turned into large gashes.

People parading with signs on the streets leaned forward involuntarily.

The people behind them held them by the shoulders, punching and kicking them all the way.

Then someone came out to complain, and when they got excited, they picked up a wooden stick and hit them twice, but no one cared about it. The people next to them felt so indignant that they helped to hit them with a few sticks, but no one bothered to do anything. The kid had a big stick with a thick arm, and hit it hard.

Say hello on your body.

Who knows if someone misses, the stick will fall on the person's heavenly spirit cover. When it is rounded and smashed with the wind, thousands of peach blossoms will bloom immediately.

When adults were criticized, children could not escape. The activists picked up the child's calf, rounded it and threw it against a tree. The child didn't understand on the spot, and blood flowed down his nose, ears, eyes, and mouth.

Come out.

Three days, only three days. In more than a hundred villages around Jinling, all the gentry and landlords were wiped out. Each village elected a village head. From now on, they will farm the land under the leadership of the village head and no longer have to work for the landlords.

Worry about things.

Farmers who had been landless for eight lifetimes suddenly had land, and they also had large livestock confiscated from the landlord's house to use in rotation. They were so excited that they couldn't sleep at night, for fear that this was just a dream and that the dream would be shattered when they woke up.

Gentlemen from all over the country who heard the news packed up their belongings and fled. There was no other way, no matter how hard the mantis' shell was, it could not stop the carriage.

Land reform is being implemented vigorously and resolutely in Jiangnan. As long as there is anyone who stands in the way, it is the landlords and their comrades. They will be arrested by the fanatical farmers who are incited and paraded through the streets, and then the lucky ones will be maimed, and the unlucky ones will be beaten to death. Including them.

The wives and children at home were also killed. Many people were even beaten to death by their entire families.
Chapter completed!