In the Gu's manor in the suburbs, a young man with twin eyes looked at the contract in front of him. He hesitated for a long time, and finally sighed and wrote his name on it.
"Gu Yanwu."
With his name signed and his fingerprint pressed, the eight hundred acres of his ancestral land will be pledged to Ye Fangheng, a wealthy fellow from the same town.
"Brother Gu Jiang, if you don't want to pledge it to me and not sell it, then why do you do this?"
Ye Fangheng is also from a wealthy family in Kunshan, and he is already a high-ranking official. Compared with Gu Jiang, a scholar who failed several provincial examinations, he can be said to be proud of his life. The Ye family has prospered in business over the years, has made a lot of money, and has money in hand to lend money and buy land. In contrast,
, Gu Jiang’s life was very unhappy.
"The country has been ruined and the family has fallen into decline. From today on, I will change my name to Yanwu."
"Really? But by changing your name on this mortgage deed, are you suspected of not acknowledging the debt?" Ye Fangheng waved his folding fan and chuckled. The Ye family has great wealth and has always been rampant in the countryside. After the Qing army went south, they actively surrendered.
.
Gu Jiang changed his name to Yanwu to express his admiration for Wang Yanwu, a patriot of the Southern Song Dynasty.
"Although my name has been changed, haven't I also pressed my fingerprints? Gu is an upright person. Since he gave you the ancestral land certificate, how can he default on the debt? If Fang Juren is not willing to borrow it, then forget it."
"Yes, of course I do." Ye Fangheng immediately put away the mortgage contract with a smile upon hearing this. The Ye and Gu families are both wealthy in Kunshan, but the Ye family's background is much worse than that of the Gu family.
The Gu family in Kunshan moved from Wu County to Chuzhou in the Five Dynasties, then moved to Haimen in the Southern Song Dynasty, and then moved to Kunshan. It has been more than 500 years since the Gu family came from a scholarly family, and three generations of Gu Yanwu's great-great-grandfather and grandfather produced four Jinshi.
However, when it came to Gu Yanwu's father, the family began to decline. His father was an Imperial College Supervisor and fathered five children. Gu Yanwu was adopted and raised by his stepfather Gu Ji at birth. He was greatly influenced by his stepfather since he was a child, and his stepfather was also a
He was a supervisor, but he was knowledgeable, concerned about world affairs, and liked reading newspapers. He often asked Gu Yanwu to copy newspapers, and when he was young, he supervised him in reading historical records and other classics and history articles.
The mother-in-law, Mrs. Wang, was the daughter of an imperial student and a well-educated young lady. However, her fiancée Gu Jitong died of illness before the marriage was officially completed. She later married into the Gu family. Gu Yanwu was born by this widowed mother.
Raised and brought up.
It is said that Wang took good care of his parents-in-law and treated his heir as though they were dead. Her mother-in-law was seriously ill, and Wang even cut off one of her own fingers to make medicine for her mother-in-law according to folk remedies. There was a story about Wang's cut off finger to heal the injury, so the court
He also built a Zhenxiao memorial arch for her.
Gu Yanwu had double pupils and could see ten lines in one sight. He was even infected with smallpox and almost died when he was young. However, perhaps because he read a lot of miscellaneous books since childhood, although he was very talented and learned, he was not satisfied in the imperial examination. Although he was admitted as a scholar early,
And he joined the famous Fushe in Jiangnan, but failed repeatedly in the provincial examination.
From the age of fourteen to twenty-seven, he had been studying hard at the Imperial College in order to pass the examination, but he had studied hard for fourteen years with no results. In the twelfth year of Chongzhen, he failed again in the provincial examination.
The current situation was difficult, with bandits and bandits rising inside and invaders from outside, so he decided not to take the imperial examination and instead began to write and compile books.
However, after his grandfather died of illness two years later, his uncle Jigao, his brother Zhongyu and his son started a dispute over the family property and wanted to drive back his adopted heir since childhood.
The family property lawsuits had been going on for several years, and Gu Yanwu was tired of dealing with them. However, the current situation was turbulent, and the Yao hedgehogs gathered together, apportionments continued, floods, droughts, and famines, and the fields were barren. His uncle even deliberately instigated his servants to rebel and fight for the family property, which led to the chaos in the family. Uneasy.
Last year, after Hongguang was established in Nanjing, Gu Yanwu, a member of the Restoration of Socialism, was recruited as the secretary of the Ministry of War. Gu Yanwu was tired of the family feud and intended to go to Nanjing to join the military and serve the country. Full of enthusiasm, he wrote the Four Essays on Yiyou of Shangshu and wrote for the imperial court. He made plans and went to Nanjing via Zhenjiang to take up a post. However, before arriving in Nanjing, Hongguang had already abandoned the capital and fled, and the Qing army occupied it.
Gu Yanwu had no choice but to return to his hometown, but the Qing army continued to move southward.
During this period of time, Gu Yanwu has been planning with his friends in returning to the village. Recently, he finally made up his mind to contact the martyrs and raise an army.
What prompted them to revolt was the many good news coming from the south, especially the letter written to him by his friend Huang Zongxi, which made him extremely excited after reading it.
In the east of Zhejiang Province came the Lu Supervisor State, who was young, promising and responsible. In a short period of time, he had already made a great impact and even crossed the sea to go on the Northern Expedition.
Gu Yanwu decided to unite with the patriots of Wu to raise the flag to respond and cooperate with Lu Jianguo's Northern Expedition to regain the south of the Yangtze River.
He returned to his hometown again and decided to sell the 800 acres of ancestral land left to him by his ancestors to raise money for the uprising.
"Take the silver!"
Gu Yanwu looked at the contract that was put into Ye Fangheng's arms with an expressionless expression. He knew that Ye Fangheng had long been plotting his family's land. In the land of Susong in the south of the Yangtze River, there were many people but little land. Land was very rare and had even formed a The situation of two land owners can be divided into two types: bone and skin. The bones are the property rights of the land, while the skin is the tenancy rights, and the tenancy rights are transferable.
It is very difficult for wealthy landowners to buy land. It is even more difficult for anyone to sell their ancestral land unless they have to, especially if it is a large tract of land.
The Gu family has been fighting within the family, and the family property lawsuit has been going on for several years. I don’t know how many powerful landowners have been watching, and they want to take a bite. Gu Yanwu offered to mortgage 800 acres of his ancestral land. Although it was not a direct sale, it was just a mortgage, but for For Ye Fangheng, this is still a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
In his opinion, Gu Yanwu is just a guy who is stupid at studying. Although he is quite famous in Fushe, so what? The lawsuit over the property dispute has been going on for several years with no result. Gu Yanwu has no ability to make a fortune, and now he is sitting on nothing. Litigation is a bottomless pit.
As long as the land is mortgaged, there will be no chance for him to redeem it again.
Gu Yanwu had no intention of thinking about Zutian anymore at this time. He was thinking about bigger things now.
After getting the money, he went home immediately.
First I went to see my stepmother, Mrs. Wang.
"When the country is in trouble, it is everyone's responsibility. King Lu of eastern Zhejiang came to the throne to supervise the country. Now he has not only stabilized eastern Zhejiang, but also personally ordered the king's division to send troops to the north and entered Jiaxing. When his son and his friends returned to the village, Wu Qihan decided to respond. We must unite Yang Yongyan, the former magistrate of Kunshan, and Wang Yongzuo, the former governor of Xunyang, raised troops to respond to the uprising."
"My son can no longer serve his mother. It is unfilial."
"Today, I pledged 800 acres of my family's ancestral land to Ye Fangheng. I am ashamed of my ancestors."
Mrs. Wang held a book in her hand, and after listening to her son's words, she said calmly, "When you decided to go to Nanjing to take up a post, I understood your intention to save the country. Now that you want to sell your ancestral land to recruit rebels to fight against the invaders, I still I still fully support you, you don’t have to worry about me, I will take care of myself.”
"My son has arranged for his servants to send his mother to live in Zhuangzi on the outskirts of Changshu."
He also gave some money to Wang.
"You can keep the money for big things. I can go to the village in Changshu and grow vegetables and weave cloth for my own use. It won't cost anything. You can take care of yourself."
Gu Yanwu cried and said, "My son is unfilial. Maybe he will never be able to come back to serve me again."
Wang patted his hand and said, "Even though I am a woman, I am still blessed by the country. You are a minister of the Ming Dynasty. Don't live up to the great grace of the country for generations. Don't forget the instructions of your ancestors. If you unfortunately die, then I will
They went on a hunger strike to die for their country and met underground."
"Mother!" Gu Yanwu felt mixed after hearing this.
"Go ahead, that's just the worst case scenario, but it may not be the worst. The Lu Supervisor you mentioned may be able to make the Northern Expedition soon and regain Jiangnan."
"Yes! I will definitely do it." Gu Yanwu gritted his teeth and said.
After bidding farewell to his mother-in-law, Gu Yanwu rushed to meet his friends Gui Zhuang and Wu Qihang with his money. They were both good friends in the society and had similar aspirations, especially Gui Qi. They had been classmates together for more than ten years and were called Gui Qi and Gu Wei at the time.
.
"This is five thousand taels of silver."
When Gu Yanwu met, he pointed to the boxes of money that the servants had brought in.
Gui Zhuang and Wu Qihang smiled and pointed to a corner of the room, "Our money arrived earlier."
Gu Yanwu said, "Ye Fangheng deliberately lowered the price and wanted me to sell it all. In the end, I sold it live for a little over sixty taels per mu. Eight hundred acres were sold for only 5,000 acres."
"This is a bitch." Guizhuang couldn't help but swear.
Land in Jiangnan is very expensive. Even in the current turmoil, Jiangnan is still relatively less affected. Another feature of Jiangnan's land sales is that the procedures and land rights are complicated. For example, there are live sales and absolute sales, and even
You can still find the price after selling.
Some can still ask for a price several times, even if they were originally sold, or even sold outright, and a contract was signed, but after a few years, the original landowner can still ask for a price search to compensate for the difference, or even more than once. The reason is not
The places south of the Yangtze River are more popular.
Even now, it has actually become a rural custom to go through multiple price searches between live sales and final sales, which is regarded as the legitimate rights and interests of the landlords. The landlords can even sell the farm skins first and then the farm bones.
Anyway, land buying and selling in Jiangnan is very complicated, and even landowners cannot deprive tenants of their tenancy rights, so farm skins can also be bought and sold.
However, there are only a lot of lawsuits over farmland in Jiangnan, and such lawsuits can easily lead to collusion between officials and landlords, so every link must be managed, and each requires someone from the yamen.
Gu Yanwu's 800 acres of land is currently being sold live, that is, it can still be redeemed. If there is no money to redeem it at the end of the period, it can be sold completely, and you can also ask for a price, but Gu Yanwu can't care about that now.
Even if the eight hundred acres of land were sold alive, the market price would be more than five thousand taels of silver, but I didn't care.
"Has Mr. Yang replied? Is the prince willing to lead everyone?" Gu Yanwu asked.
Although the three were the chief conspirators of this uprising, their status was not high after all. They contacted the former Kunshan County Magistrate and hoped to persuade Wang Yongzuo, who had served as governor of Xunyang, to lead them. After all, Wang Zhishi, a squire, had served as governor.
If you are willing to stand up and lead the rebels, the results will definitely be better.
"Mr. Yang has sent five thousand taels of silver and said that he is contacting his colleagues and lofty ideals. He also said that the prince has agreed to lead the rebel army. They also said that they will capture Kunshan first, then Suzhou, and then go south to recover Hangzhou and unite with eastern Zhejiang.
.”
Gu Yanwu was very excited after hearing this, "That's great."
"Brother Gu, has there been any new letter from Brother Taichong? Where is the Northern Expedition led by Lu Jianguo? Is there any good news?"
"Yes, I have just received great news. I guarantee you will clap your hands and cheer loudly after hearing this!"
"What great news, hurry up and tell me!" Guizhuang and Wu Qikang hurriedly urged after hearing this.
