The newly harvested wheat field was leveled and placed with many square benches.
Wu Huaiyu brought many old people over, but it was a hundred sixty-year-old women specially prepared for today's birthday banquet to accompany Wu Liu.
Banquet of 100 Ladies.
They are all old women from Shiliba Township in Sanyuan County. They are all sixty years old this year. The Wu family invited them to a banquet. Each of them prepared a new set of clothes for their birthday, as well as silk quilts, birthday noodles, and birthday peaches.
Pastries and wine, plus 60 Wenxi coins, picked up and delivered by car.
Seeing the scene carefully prepared by her son, Mrs. Wu Liu was so happy that she could not open her mouth from ear to ear. The old ladies who had been invited also praised Mrs. Wu Liu one after another, praising her for her good fortune and the good sons and daughters she had given birth to.
, the population is prosperous,
At this moment, Mrs. Wu Liu truly felt that her life had reached its peak.
Open the banquet,
The children and grandchildren came forward to pay their birthdays one after another, and then came all the relatives of the Wu family. Even Lao Wu specially found some distant relatives from Wu Liu's natal family in Hedong. These Liu family members were originally quite distant from the Wu Liu family.
Maybe Fan Shang is a member of the Wu family, and of course he is very happy to do so.
They came up and knelt down respectfully. Some called them sister, some called them aunt, and some called them great-aunt. Mrs. Wu Liu remembered that her family was poor in the past, her parents died early, and her brothers and sisters were gone. Now, the Liu family can still come to congratulate her.
Shou couldn't help but shed tears.
"Erlang, these are all members of my mother's family. You will have to help them in the future."
"I've remembered it."
In fact, the Wu family has developed in recent years, and there are always distant relatives of the Liu family of the Wu family, and even the old Wu concubines of the Wang family come to play on the swing. The old Wu family is quite kind, no matter if he is a relative who cannot be beaten with eight poles, now that he has come to visit,
If you can help, help; if you can make arrangements, make arrangements.
Many distant relatives also work directly in the Wu family, and their treatment is pretty good.
For example, some of the distant relatives of the Liu family are already working for the Wu family, or some are helping to manage the Wu family's village in Hedong. Even if others are not working for the Wu family, Lao Wu will not let them go home empty-handed every time.
At the beginning of the banquet, the Wu family's eight bowls were very beautiful, and they were all hard dishes.
The old ladies toasted to the Wu Liu family. Some of these ladies came from the noble families and powerful landowners, but most of them were ordinary peasants. They held the wine glasses and expressed their gratitude to the Wu Liu family.
Not only did he thank them for the birthday gifts and the birthday banquet, but he also thanked Wu Huaiyu for piloting the new tax law in Sanyuan this year.
Basically all people benefit from the new law.
After obtaining the imperial edict, the tax arrears in the past are exempted, and there is no need to pay taxes in the future. Furthermore, those without land are classified as customers and do not need to pay rent. Those with land are also levied based on the Dingkou and the number of acres of land according to the actual situation.
With the reduction and exemption, everyone’s tax this year will suddenly be reduced a lot.
A woman with white hair and her waist almost bent to the ground. She looked like she was seventy or eighty years old, but she was just sixty this year. She almost had no teeth. She was very grateful to Mrs. Wu Liu, saying that she had three sons in her family.
Daughter, the two eldest daughters are married, and the two eldest sons are also married, but the younger sons and daughters have not yet married.
There are now twelve members in the family, including four adult men. However, in the early years of Wude, they were allotted 40 acres of land, 20 acres of Yongye and 20 acres of land. Later, they were never allotted new land.
Nowadays, a family of twelve mainly relies on tenant farming on the land owned by the landlord, and also does other work. It is extremely hard all year round, but with four men's rent, each of the four men has to perform twenty days of free labor every year, and one person
For two shi, the rent for four people is eight shi, and there are four bolts of silk and twelve taels of cotton.
Most of the harvest from rented land must be paid to the landlord in rent.
In addition to the various surcharges of the Yamen, fire expenses, other miscellaneous apportionments, and some other charges from the landlord's family, the family worked hard for a year, and in the end there was not much left.
When there was no auspicious grain in the past, they had to eat porridge with wild vegetables for a long time. They often had to borrow grain. If they couldn't repay the borrowed grain, they had to sell their land. Forty acres of land, and twenty acres of land were sold one after another.
After this summer’s harvest, Sanyuan County tried out a new law.
The old lady's family only has twenty acres of land left. Although there are four acres, according to the new law, one patch is only five acres, so they are not classified as equal and can be exempted from rent transfer.
At this time, there is no need to pay eight shi of millet, four bolts of silk, and twelve taels of cotton, and only four dou of grain per mu are collected. There is another advantage of being free of rent and adjustment, such as fire consumption, warehouse fees, and foot money.
, there is no need to pay bondage money, etc., which could have accounted for 20% or more of the regular tax.
The old lady’s family is still the main household, but there is almost no tax burden like the clients.
For this poor family, those eight stones of millet, four bolts of silk, and twelve taels of cotton were equivalent to a large amount of wealth. Those eight stones of millet could survive the lean years.
Four pieces of silk can be sold for 800 yuan, which can greatly improve the family's life.
I never dared to think about these things before, but this year Sanyuan County has implemented a new law, and the village chief Li Zheng has informed his family that they no longer need to pay rent adjustment and several additional taxes and fees.
The old woman is really grateful to the Wu family. Li Zheng also said that this is a new law that was tried out in Sanyuan County after Wu Xianggong asked the sage. We all owe it to Wu Xianggong.
The old woman was brought to the birthday banquet, and her family specially brought out a piece of silk as a birthday gift.
This is a sincere thank you.
Mrs. Wu Liu was very proud after hearing this, but she did not harvest the silk. She used to grow mulberry, raise silkworms and weave silk. She knew very well how difficult it was to make this silk. She picked mulberry leaves every day, fed the silkworms several times a day, and worked hard to weave cocoons.
Then the silk must be reeled and woven into silk,
"With the saints in the court and the help of the wise, the days will get better and better in the future. We old women must live well and live for a few more years to enjoy the happiness." Mrs. Wu Liu pulled the old woman and said.
"Alang, the angel from Chang'an Palace has arrived!" Shitou came over to report to Huaiyu.
On the occasion of Wu Liu's birthday, Li Shimin and Changsun of Chang'an both sent envoys to reward him.
I heard that the saint sent an envoy to congratulate him on his birthday, which made everyone at the birthday banquet even more alarmed.
Wu Huaiyu took Wu Liu and others to welcome the imperial edict.
The emperor gave Wu Liu an agate cup inlaid with a gold animal head, a gilt silver pot with a dancing horse's title cup pattern, and Empress Changsun gave a silver sachet with grape, flower and bird patterns, a gold hairpin in the shape of a cloud head, a gold comb back, and a gold armband.
Two of each, as well as a plain gold basin and a plain silver basin.
The emperor also gave him a longevity inscription written by himself.
When the envoys showed the treasures given by the emperor and empress to the public, there were countless exclamations from below.
Many people have never seen such good things. These gold and silver utensils are all very beautifully made and made by royal workshops. Most people can't see these things, let alone have the right to own them.
The reward from the emperor and empress has just been accepted with gratitude,
The prince sent envoys to congratulate him on his birthday and give him gifts.
There are gilt silver boxes with pomegranate patterns, gilt silver bowls with small cluster patterns, jade Ruyi, Funan rhinoceros staff, etc., as well as a picture of a hundred years of longevity written by the deputy prince himself.
Each piece is a royal fine product, extremely exquisite and equally valuable.
The birthday banquet of the Wu family reached its climax with the gifts from the emperor, queen, and prince. Everyone was sighing at Mr. Wu's favor.
After the birthday banquet at Wujiabao,
But there are still many people coming to Longqiao. We have been eating at the flowing noodle table for more than an hour, and it is not over yet. The number of people has not decreased at all, but has increased.
The Wu family had to dispatch more slaves to knead and roll the dough. A row of large pots over there were also burning with fire. They boiled water, cooked noodles, and stir-fried sauerkraut. Once the pot was cooked, they immediately loaded it into buckets, and then carried it out to the road to entertain the guests.
.
"No matter how many people come today, or how late everyone comes, as long as they come, we must ensure that everyone can eat meat and sesame seeds noodles, and they must be full. If the noodles are not enough, we will not cook them, if the sauces are not enough, we will fry them, and if the meat is not enough, we will kill them as soon as possible.
Pig, in short, everyone who comes is a guest, so you must treat them well."
Ayi smiled and said, "More than ten thousand people are here now. It is estimated that there are tens of thousands of people today. This scene is unprecedented and will never be seen again."
"That's because our Wu family has a good reputation, otherwise no one would come all the way for a bowl of noodles."
Zhao Yi thought to himself, there are really many people who come here specifically just for a bowl of pork noodles, not to mention, there is lucky money coming today.
There were too many people coming, and the original plan was to scatter some dried fruit preserves and some copper coins, but seeing this, Wu Huaiyu had to cancel at the last minute. There were too many people, and he was worried that there would be a stampede due to the competition for the dried fruit coins.
"In this way, when everyone leaves, each person will be given a bowl of millet and a copper coin. This will be considered as compensation for canceling the fruit and money scattering."
"Alang, we don't owe you anything. A bowl of millet for one person and one copper coin for tens of thousands of people is still a lot."
"With tens of thousands of people, it's only a few hundred stones of grain and a few dozen copper coins. Today is a festive and lively event in our family. Everyone has worked hard to send blessings, so we should be generous."
"Alang is generous, I will make arrangements right away."
County Magistrate Zhao Renben and Recorder Zhao Ze were very busy today. It was not until dark that the huge crowd finally began to disperse, but there were still many people left.
"Fortunately, the Prime Minister is generous and generous. Otherwise, if tens of thousands of people gather today and are not prepared enough, riots will easily occur. I have been worried today." Zhao Lushi said, wiping his sweat.
Zhao Renben was also very tired, "The Prime Minister had expected it and was well prepared. The Prime Minister was worthy of commanding thousands of troops, destroying Liang's capital, and capturing Jie Li Khan. We were all in a hurry, but the Prime Minister had already made arrangements."
It’s all right.”
"Mingfu, our Sanyuan County is trying out a new law, and Prime Minister Wu is taking the lead in implementing it. The people are full of praise. You see, the people who came today are all saying yes to it."
"Of course the people praise it. For those with a ding of land less than a hundred acres, the rent adjustment will be greatly reduced this time. Even very few land will be directly exempted from the rent adjustment. Those who have no land are even included as customers and do not need to pay the rent adjustment. Yicang Liang
No need to accept it, who do you think is unhappy?"
"Mingfu, if we just follow this new law, our county's taxes this year will be greatly reduced. Even if the court has a special decree that we don't need to pay so much this year, what will our county do? The surcharges will also be greatly reduced, and our taxes will be greatly reduced.
Where do the money for public servants, government food, miscellaneous expenses for officials, and those non-staff servants come from?"
Zhao Renben is also aware of this. The trial implementation of this new law is actually a bit drastic. It first exempted the landless from rent adjustment, and then exempted and exempted the rent adjustment for those whose land is less than 100 acres. However, for the time being, it still exempts landowners with more than 100 acres from rent adjustment.
Nothing changed, they still rented two feet of silk and three ounces of cotton for one piece of two stones to conquer.
If we do this, Sanyuan County will not be able to collect much tax revenue this year. Fortunately, there is a special decree from the imperial court that we don't have to worry about it.
The Wu family took the lead in taking the initiative to pay per mu of land, paying two liters per mu. This tax rate was actually low. He discussed with Wu Huaiyu and felt that the tax per mu should be at least six liters for upper fields, four to five liters for middle fields, and two or three liters for lower fields.
Reasonable.
However, this year it is not mandatory for those who have more than 100 acres to pay the rent per mu. They can throw away and only pay the rent per ding. But Wu Huaiyu has set an example and took the lead. This year, people like the Li family will definitely pay the rent on their own initiative. Of course not
It doesn't matter if you pay.
Another example is that in Sanyuan County, there are thousands of Yuan Cong Jinjun households. These people are basically small landowners or farmers, and each family owns at least 100 acres of land. Wu Huaiyu has explained that these Yuan Congjin Army households will be ignored for the time being this year.
"Zhao Lushi, look at the attitude of the people today. People's hearts are good. We must step up and achieve some results. We must not let down Mr. Wu's kind cultivation."
"Please rest assured, Mingfu, our county government has been working hard on this matter recently, and almost all the registered acres have been re-examined,"
"Very good, household registration, field registration, etc., these registers must be completed as soon as possible. The imperial court will send people down to verify them. Remember, do not commit fraud. This time we are trying out the new law. Our Sanyuan County is under the supervision of the imperial court.
Extra attention, countless pairs of eyes are staring,
If something goes wrong, not only will you lose Xianggong Wu's trust, but you will also be severely punished. I must reiterate to everyone that you should not ignore your own future just for bribes."
Zhao Lushi was shocked, "I understand, I must warn everyone carefully."
Shi Shouxin came over and said, "Zhao Ming Mansion, Zhao Lu's affairs, my Alang said that you two have worked hard today, please come over and have tea."
