Listening to Wang Mazi's report, Zhang Mingtu was slightly surprised.
But after thinking about it again, I think it makes sense.
The Baby Tower incident is not an isolated incident, and it does not mean that giving a certain victim some food rations can change the current situation.
What the victims need are houses, land, fields, cattle, and... fairness.
It is a pity that all this is in the hands of wealthy gentry families, and even in the hands of the county magistrate.
If the county magistrate is asked to transfer a load of grain from the treasury to provide disaster relief, the county magistrate will feel distressed.
After all, he can still resell the grain in the national treasury, so asking the county magistrate to take out the land under his name and give the untouchables in his eyes a piece of cake would be even more uncomfortable than killing him.
It is not that easy to spit out what you have eaten.
The evaluation of officials is related to the reputation and fame of the local area. When the inspection envoy comes to inspect, he will investigate the local situation and listen to the opinions of the local "people" to see whether the county magistrate is unpopular with the people and whether his prestige among the people is high.
But the "common people" in the eyes of the inspectors are not the same as the common people in the eyes of ordinary people.
The inspectors were investigating and questioning local scholars, the local gentry and nobles.
If they give you good words, then the score given in the corresponding assessment will be high, and it will be easy to get a top grade.
The county magistrate refused to take a bite of the meat in his mouth, and the local wealthy family refused to take a bite of the meat in his door. Therefore, there was no way to solve the baby tower issue.
But the county magistrate always has a way. He ordered the baby tower to be too cruel and offensive to morals, so he ordered it to be demolished in various places. No one dared to disobey it.
As soon as this order was issued, all the baby towers near Jianyi were demolished, and the bones inside were moved to mass graves and buried randomly.
You see, the county magistrate always has a solution, and he solves it very cleverly.
There are no more baby towers in Jianyi. The gentlemen are kind-hearted and do not want to see these sufferings in the world.
Wang Mazi also explained in detail what he had done, and Zhang Mingtu nodded.
In this world, if you want to keep ordinary people alive and the poor alive, without considering open rebellion, what Wang Mazi did is quite feasible.
Collect enough land and rent it to local residents at a very low price.
"This...this feeling, why does it feel like a local gentry family?"
Zhang Mingtu chewed it carefully for a moment or two, feeling a little strange inexplicably.
If you want to protect the vast number of ordinary people in Jianyi, you need a lot of land.
If all these fields and lands were put under the name of one person and rented out to local civilian farmers for farming at a very small rent, then the person who owns these fields would probably be the largest landowner in Jianyi.
"I wanted to wipe out the local gentry family, but after wiping them out, I ended up becoming a new tycoon family?"
Zhang Mingtu always thinks this is too ironic, but at present, this seems to be the only feasible way.
Even if he has the ability to take away large tracts of fertile land from wealthy families, after it is distributed to local farmers, it will not be long before floods, droughts and other natural and man-made disasters occur, and this good citizen who owns farmland will soon become a refugee again.
.
Their land and properties will soon be annexed by local landlords. This kind of thing is very common and has happened on this land for thousands of years.
Personal power is often too fragile and can be easily destroyed.
Unless there are really powerful means to break the original order, there are corresponding laws and regulations that can protect the good local people and safeguard their interests.
Otherwise, it won't be long before everything will return to its original point and fall into a death cycle again.
Zhang Mingtu felt a little nostalgic for his hometown.
"We may be able to save one or two, but unless our property and land are as much as the Wang and Li families, everything will return to the way it was before long, or even worse than before..."
After Wang Mazi dealt with the baby tower matter, he treated Zhang Mingtu with more respect and spoke more clearly.
The meaning of what he said is also very obvious. The situation in Jianyi is rotten to the core. At most, it can only save a small number of people, but there is nothing they can do for many others.
Zhang Mingtu squinted his eyes, thinking of what was going to happen in the near future, and said softly: "Having such vast land as the Wang and Li families..."
"Master, what did you say?"
Zhang Mingtu shook his head and didn't say much, but in fact he already had a plan in mind.
The great purge from Ruihai will come soon. King Jianyi, the Li family and even more smaller families will all fall apart in this great purge.
After careful calculation, the land acquired through various tricks and tyranny amounted to more than 100,000 acres, excluding the portion whose original owners could be found.
More than 100,000 acres of farmland will be put at official auctions or in dental shops, and can be traded at will.
After that incident happened, the prices of the entire proposed land were frighteningly low for a while. This was a wave of great welfare issued by the government or Ruihai, hoping to benefit the ordinary people in the local area.
But ordinary people can't afford even the meager price.
They have long been squeezed out by the rich and powerful families, and it is difficult for them to have enough food and clothing every day, let alone save extra money.
But they couldn't buy it, but Zhang Mingtu could.
"I have to thank my good brother for this!"
Zhang Mintu couldn't help but think of the brother who had explored all the overt and covert wealth in Jianyi.
Collecting this huge wealth, we can even purchase more than 100,000 acres of farmland.
"Give it a try. Money isn't of much use to me anyway. I don't love money and I don't touch it very much. I just want peace of mind."
Ordinary money in the mortal world is of little use to Zhang Mingtu, and cannot provide him with any help in cultivation.
In this case, it's better to disperse them all to make him feel better.
"It's just that you can't show your face directly to do this, and you have to change your identity..."
Zhang Mingtu couldn't help but think of the Zhang family. If the Zhang family knew that he had quietly collected more than 100,000 acres of land, many people in the Zhang family might be counting on him to make a living.
Zhang Mingtu has no doubt that after the Zhang family has such huge wealth, after one or two generations, it is very likely that they will transform into tycoons like the Wang and Li families.
Everyone says they will never forget their original intention, but as time goes by, events and circumstances have changed. How many people really remember their original intention and never forget their mission?
Human nature has never been able to withstand the test. Sitting on huge wealth, you can live in vain every day. You can easily obtain other people's property and wealth without illegal means.
Zhang Mintu believes that people in charge of such huge wealth will definitely change their minds in the future.
Zhang Mingtu had at least studied Marx's works and knew clearly that there are only people who betray the class, and there is no class that betrays the class.