"President Wang is such a capable minister!" Tang Fengyi clapped her hands and praised.
The same method is used to open up the sea and is domineering, and used to suppress the extravagant trend is to be a minister. Tang Yushi's double standard is very smooth, and he does not seem to realize this, and he always praises Wang Yuan for doing well when he meets everyone!
The Ni family immediately returned 90% of the dowry, and Mrs. Yu returned to her natal family to remarry.
Immediately afterwards, the Yu family announced their support for the governor, and from now on they would run the family frugally and take the initiative to return 90% of the betrothal gift to the Ni family.
Not only that, the Ni and Yu families demolished the illegal parts of the house one after another, and the children of the two families wore Geyi when going out. When the poetry club founded by the Yu family in Hangzhou held cultural gatherings, they also served vegetarian tea.
There is no more food and drink such as wine and meat.
In a word, these two powerful families were frightened by Governor Wang!
Other families in Hangzhou were also frightened and quickly renovated their houses. Anyway, they could not give the governor any reason to violate the regulations.
In the six counties of Qiantang, Renhe, Haining, Fuyang, Yuhang and Lin'an, which are close to Hangzhou Prefecture, the magistrates have successively carried out marriage clearance work. They cannot directly manage the countryside, they only clean up the county towns and go to each house to ask whether there is a marriage contract.
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If the child is already engaged and has not consummated the marriage beyond the stipulated age, he will be ordered to visit the church within half a month!
Recently, there was only one auspicious day, and weddings were held in six counties.
As Tang Fengyi said, the real purpose of stipulating the age of marriage for men and women is not to enforce it, but to give the families of both parties a step down.
Especially those ordinary families who cannot consummate their marriages because they want to save face. Now that there is a government order, they finally do not need a huge dowry, and they are not afraid of the gossips of their neighbors. They happily welcome the bride through the door.
Tang Fengyi was chatting with Wang Yuan when suddenly a subordinate came to report: "General Secretary, there are people outside the camp crying out for injustice!"
"Bring him in." Wang Yuan said.
Tang Fengyi also sat nearby, waiting to watch Governor Wang hear the case.
There were several people complaining, all of them farmers and women wearing shabby clothes. They all fell to their knees as soon as they entered the main hall of the Tutu Temple.
Wang Yuan asked: "What grievances do you have?"
One of the farmers seemed to have studied for a few days and spoke clearly and logically: "Mr. Governor, we are all good citizens of Yong'an Township, Fuyang County. Although there are children in the family, they are not engaged, and they have not exceeded the age specified by the Governor. But in the county
The local officials conspired with the rural scoundrels to accuse us of disobeying the governor's decree."
Wang Yuan had already guessed the truth and asked: "They took the opportunity to blackmail?"
The farmer said: "Each family must pay one tael of money for breaking the marriage, otherwise they will be punished as servants. Those officials and scoundrels said that this is the rule of the governor, and anyone who dares to disobey will have their home confiscated and exiled. As long as the family has marriageable children.
This is the case for more than ten miles around, and you have to pay money to be exempted from corvee. The common people heard that the governor was a good official and would never do such evil things, so they brought the villagers to complain."
Wang Yuan laughed angrily and said to Tang Fengyi: "Tang Yushi, do you see? Using our name to make money, a good thing can turn into a bad thing for you. If this order is enforced throughout the province, I don't know how many people will be killed."
Therefore, if we break up our family, you and I will both be stigmatized because of a marriage restriction order."
"audacious in the extreme!"
Tang Fengyi was so angry that her face turned red and her neck was thick. What he valued most was a good reputation. How could he tolerate such false accusations? He immediately held up his hands and said: "President Wang, these traitors must be severely punished!"
Wang Yuan said: "I will give you a hundred soldiers, and you must capture these evil thieves. If there are any who resist arrest and resist the order, you can kill them on the spot." Suddenly, Wang Yuan's face turned cold, "Find out who is supporting them, and if there are any
The wealthy gentry participated in it and were directly exiled to guard the border. The Western Region happened to be short of people."
"I'll do it immediately." Tang Fengyi bowed her hands and obeyed the order. He was more anxious about this matter than anyone else.
Wang Yuan, on the other hand, was not as excited as Tang Fengyi. He waved the red flag to fight against the red flag, which was a common tactic of officials all over the world.
Restrictions on marriage can become a means for corrupt officials to make money. If a strict investigation of infant drowning is carried out immediately across the province, Zhejiang will probably be outraged.
Although the imperial court clearly stipulated that those who drowned infants were exiled to the army, and those who knew and failed to report were equally guilty, but there was no practical possibility at all. If you say that a baby was drowned in a certain family, and others say that the baby died in infancy, how do you determine the truth?
Avoid sitting together and it will definitely help you get rid of it.
If the chief official pushes too hard and assigns tasks to the subordinate officials, unjust, false, and wrong cases will inevitably occur. It is very likely that those families who really died of infants will be framed by the officials for drowning their babies.
In the end, there can only be one result. For a rich and powerful family, there is nothing wrong with drowning a baby. A family without money and power will be ruined by the government, and the officials can make money crazily in the process.
This kind of thing cannot be handled by the imperial court, at least not by the ancient imperial court.
Tang Fengyi led his troops to deal with the evil officials, and then patrolled the entire province to avoid being taken advantage of to destroy his reputation. This guy was very active in doing things for the sake of his reputation, and Wang Yuan believed that he could seriously solve the relevant problems.
As soon as Tang Fengyi left, Wang Yuan immediately summoned Tang Bohu.
"Ziwei, it is difficult to correct the extravagant marriages and the evil customs of infanticide," Wang Yuan asked, "Do you have any good ideas?"
Tang Bohu said: "The extravagance of marriages is due to the prosperity of Jiangnan. The general system may be suppressed at that time, but once the general system leaves Zhejiang, the extravagant trend will definitely return. The custom of infanticide is firstly because the dowry is too thick, and secondly
Due to the custom of drowning the first-born daughter, especially the first-born daughter, does the general system know what the folk name is?"
"What is it called?" Wang Yuan asked.
"Xi'er!" Tang Bohu said.
"Xi'er, Xi'er... bang!" Wang Yuan muttered twice, suddenly understood what it meant, and was so angry that he slapped the table with his palm.
It's like playing Texas Hold'em. The first card is dealt a small card, so the card is torn up, shuffled and dealt again. You have to deal an A and a K.
The baby girl is the small card that was torn off; the baby boy is the big card that was shuffled and dealt again.
This is called, Xi'er!
Tang Bohu said: "Drowning female babies has been a practice since ancient times. "Han Feizi" records: 'When a male is born, congratulations are given, and when a female is born, the baby is killed.' Why must it be drowned? There is also a folk saying. Once a female baby is drowned, the female baby will be killed.
The ghost will not dare to give birth to the first child again, so the next child will definitely be a boy."
Hundreds of years later, news about grandmothers pricking their granddaughters with needles often appeared. Some women even experienced physical pain as adults and went to the hospital to take X-rays before discovering how many needles were in their bodies.
This approach is the same as drowning a baby girl, both to scare away the female ghost. If you torture the girl severely, the female ghost will not dare to reincarnate!
Tang Bohu said: "Because it is common in the south of the Yangtze River to drown girls, there is also a saying among the people. The drowning of girls in other families scares away the female ghosts. If the first-born girl in a family does not drown to death, the female ghosts will think that they are easy to bully, and the next few babies will continue to be born.
Female, because there are countless female ghosts vying to come to this family to be reincarnated. The richer the family, the more they believe this, and they often drown the first-born female baby for fear that they will not have a male child."
Wang Yuan was silent for a long time, and then suddenly said: "It seems that persuasion is impossible, so we have to use intimidation."
Tang Bohu asked: "How to intimidate?"
Wang Yuan said: "When I write novels and plays, I say that a drowned baby girl cannot be reincarnated normally, and will turn into a ghost and haunt her parents, causing trouble for the family forever. The drowned baby girl must be
The Yingli ghost is so powerful that even the eminent monks cannot conquer it. Well, there must be a story like this. After a family drowned its baby girl, it became bad luck from then on. They asked the eminent monk to save them, but the eminent monk was killed by the female ghost.
Forced to return to the secular world."
"This... the general manager is wise, maybe it can scare some foolish men and women." Tang Bohu couldn't laugh or cry.
Wang Yuan added: "Don't Jiangnan believe in Mazu? Make up a few more stories and say that giving birth to a boy or a girl is a gift from Mazu. If a family spoils their daughter, the Heavenly Concubine will no longer bless her, and her children will have grandchildren.
None of them will be blessed by the Heavenly Concubine. Of course, Mazu is kind-hearted and gives people the opportunity to change their ways. As long as they no longer spoil their daughters and accumulate virtues and do good deeds from now on, after three generations of good deeds, the Heavenly Concubine will come to bless the family again. If they do not change despite repeated admonitions,
Not only does Mazu not protect her, she will also send down her anger to punish her and cut off her heirs!"
Tang Bohu sincerely admired him: "Mr. Wang has a good method!"
Wang Yuan smiled and said: "I'll leave it to you to write plays and novels. Ziwei won't let me down, right?"
Tang Bohu cupped his hands and said: "This move has immeasurable merit, and I will do my best."
Wang Yuan sighed and said: "I can't let you work alone. I will visit the monks and Taoists in Hangzhou tomorrow. Let them help me and use the same tone to scare those good men and women."