Seeing that the villagers did not open the village gate, the guards around Li Zhi walked up and patted the door.
However, after a long time, there was no response from the door.
One of the more experienced soldiers beside Li Xing snorted coldly, walked up and raised the butt of his rifle and smashed the door, making the door bang as if it was about to be broken. After a while,
The people in the village finally couldn't stand the pressure and opened the door.
The person who opened the door was a middle-aged man. After opening the door, he refused to let Li Zhi's men in. He blocked the door and asked, "Why did the official come to our village?"
Li Xing's face darkened.
"Presumptuous! Do you know who is coming?"
Li Xing waved his hand forward, and the soldiers around him immediately rushed forward. The soldiers pushed away the middle-aged man who opened the door, and opened the door so that Li Zhi's honor guard and personal guards could enter the village.
Li Zhi walked into the village and took a look at the situation in the village.
When the people in the village saw Li Zhi coming in, they all hid in their houses and closed the doors. There was not even a child on the threshing floor in the middle of the village. Not only were people hiding, but the farmers in the village even hid food.
Get up. The villages that were filled with smoke just now have all stopped cooking fires, and the smoke on the chimneys has stopped.
Li Xing snorted coldly and cursed: "Stupid small farmer!"
Li Laosi sighed and said: "My boss, these small farmers have benefited too much from the intruders and are very hostile and guarded against us. The governance of Henan may not be that easy."
Li Zhi rode a horse and walked back and forth on the road in the middle of the village, looking at the villagers' houses. Seeing that the villagers in Henan were so defensive about him, Li Zhi didn't have the heart to go into the house and ask in detail. After walking around, he was about to return.
.
However, when he arrived at the entrance of the village, Li Zhi saw that a big house at the entrance of the village opened the door, and two strong men walked out accompanied by an old man with white beard and hair.
The three of them walked up to Li Zhi, knelt down and kowtowed to Li Zhi, got up and said, "I will wait for the common people to pay their respects to the prince."
Although these peasants were ignorant, they heard the news and knew that Li Zhi had been promoted to the king of Tianjin County and had the right title.
When Li Zhi saw that a village elder finally came out to see him, he rode on his horse and nodded.
The old man slowly got up from the ground, raised his hands and said, "Your Majesty, the old man came to see you because he hopes that your Majesty will be kind and not take away the land allocated to the people of Henan."
The beard on the old man's lips trembled slightly, and he said excitedly: "Your Majesty, the gentry is unscrupulous, and the common people are fish and meat. We have heard that the prince severely punished the unscrupulous gentry in Tianjin and Shandong, and killed many people. Finally, peace was maintained in Tianjin and Shandong.
The people have plenty of food and clothing."
"In summary, although King Chuang was called a thief by the government, he actually did the same thing as the prince did. King Chuang led the people to kill the gentry and divide the fields, so that the people of Henan could live a life of food and clothing. The so-called
Heavenly beings sensed that after the Chu army divided the fields in Henan, the weather in Henan last year was good and the people had enough to eat for a whole year."
"The issue of equalizing land and exempting taxes is a matter of fate. Now that the prince rules Henan, I hope that the prince will not issue land taxes anymore, let alone seize the people's fields. If the prince really collects land and urges taxes as rumored, I am afraid the whole Henan will be filled with complaints."
Li Zhi frowned when he heard the old man's words.
Li Xing shouted angrily on the horse: "Old man! Collecting land taxes is a matter of course. Do you want to never pay taxes after receiving a temporary favor from a thief?"
"As for the land allocated to you by the intruders, whether you can continue to cultivate it depends on the prince's decision. How can an old man like you comment?"
The old man looked at Li Xing, raised his hands and said, "If the prince really collects land and collects taxes as rumored, I am afraid that the prince's reputation for benevolence and benefiting the people will be in vain."
Li Zhi looked at the old man, a little unhappy.
Li Zhi could not have imagined that the people of Henan had completely abandoned their responsibilities as citizens of the Ming Dynasty under the influence of Li Zicheng. Not only did these farmers not think that the fields obtained by robbery were illegal, but they also hoped that Li Zhi would not cut off the robbers.
The actual policy will be implemented to the end, and I hope there will be no need to pay land taxes.
Judging from the momentum of these villagers, it seems that if Li Zhi does not agree to them, they will curse Li Zhi and even use various means to privately resist Li Zhi's rule.
For example, just like Li Zhi was shut out today, the tax official would not open the village gate when he came, making it impossible for the tax official to enter the village. Unless the tax official came with soldiers, the tax official would leave empty-handed.
Li Zhi asked Li Laosi: "Does the law of the Ming Dynasty stipulate that people can not pay land tax?"
Li Laosi cupped his hands and said: "When I returned to my employer, I looked at the laws of the Ming Dynasty. There is no provision that the people can be exempted from land tax."
Li Zhi asked again: "Li Laosi, according to the laws of the Ming Dynasty, can the people keep the land they robbed?"
Li Laosi replied: "Back to my employer, according to the Ming Dynasty law, if there is a robbery of property, the leader will be killed. All the stolen materials must be returned to the original owner. If the owner is dead, the materials will be put into the Yamen warehouse."
When the old man on the ground heard what Li Laosi said, his face flushed with excitement, and he argued loudly: "Your Majesty! What I am doing to the common people is the same as what Your Majesty did in Tianjin and Shandong. I am fighting against the gentry. I am fighting against the gentry."
Gentlemen who are stubbornly against the common people!"
Li Zhi frowned and said, "What do you mean, are you guys helpful to my career, Li Zhi?"
The old man on the ground said loudly: "Everyone knows that the prince is an enemy of the gentry in the world. The gentry in Henan were beaten to death by the people, which makes the prince's enemies weaker! Although the people in Henan were not the prince's subjects before, but they are also in Henan Province.
Share the pressure for the prince’s achievements!”
Li Zhi sneered and asked Li Laosi: "Li Laosi, why do you want to fight to the death with the world's gentry?"
Li Laosi replied: "Back to my employer, the reason why my employer fought to the death with the gentry was because the gentry broke the rules and did not pay their land tax, and put their own land tax on the common people."
"Well said, what I have done in these years is to establish rules." Li Zhi asked again: "What will happen to the rules of the people like the people in Henan who bloodshed the rich and forced them to divide their fields?"
After listening to Li Zhi's words, Li Laosi already understood what Li Zhi wanted to do, and answered with his hands raised: "If everyone in the world were like the people in Henan, the rules of the world would be worse than those of the gentry. The poor will be broken at any time.
Rich households will be plundered, no one will dare to build new fields for water conservancy development, no one will dare to recruit idlers to set up factories, and even large fertile fields will be deserted because no one dares to be a landlord to collect land rent!"
"If my boss lets the farmers in Henan go unchecked, I'm afraid there will no longer be any rules and order in the world, and one town and six provinces of my boss will be completely in chaos."
Li Zhi smiled and nodded, and then said: "Li Laosi said it very well!"
Turning around and looking at the old man standing on the ground, Li Zhi said again: "Old man, after my army entered Henan, the people in Henan refused to sell food. If the Tiger Army hadn't forcibly requisitioned food, the army's food would have been stolen.
Cut off."
"The people of Henan will become the people under my king's rule in the future and make achievements. But at this stage, the people of Henan have not made any contribution to my king's cause."
With a wave of his sleeves, Li Zhi made a decision: "The fields that the farmers in Henan Province snatched from the gentry the year before last will be turned into public fields, and the land rent will be 50%. The farmers' original land tax cannot be exempted from the tax. The land tax will be levied according to Shandong standards."
.”
"Mobilize 50,000 tiger soldiers to enter Henan, conduct careful inspections in Henan, inspect land deeds, register fields, and establish detailed yellow books of land rents and land taxes."
