I

  Chapter 262 260 [Clan power]

  The most beautiful waist girl of Ba Pai Yao is still in the election.

   This matter was very lively. First, the "dragons" were elected, and then the winners of each "rush" and "platoon" were contested. Finally, the eight rows of twenty-four rushes competed.

  It is impossible for Zhao Han to wait slowly and continue to go south by boat all the way.

   After passing Qingyuan, the fleet stopped at Southwest Water Station in Sanshui County. The name is Southwest Water Station, and the town is called Southwest Town.

   Rest overnight, then set off on the next day and go overland.

  Zhao Han was sitting in the carriage, only going two miles forward, the driver suddenly stepped on the brakes: "Yu! Yu! Yu!"

   "What's wrong?" Zhao Han opened the curtain and asked.

   "There is someone ahead!"

   "Hurry up and protect the main town!"

   "Array! Array!"

  The guards moved quickly and surrounded Zhao Han's carriage.

  Zhao Han stepped out of the carriage, stood beside the coachman and watched, but saw hundreds of peasants kneeling in front of him.

   "Don't panic, get out of the way."

  Although Zhao Han said so, the moment he passed the guard, he couldn't help reaching out and pressing the handle of the knife.

  The peasants knelt down for a long time, seeing that Zhao Han was still refusing to go over, so they got up, ran a certain distance and knelt down again.

   "Zhao Tianwang, you are wronged!"

   "Please ask Zhao Tianwang to be the master of Xiaomin!"

   "..."

Being able to wait on the road to cry for grievances, and to gather hundreds of people, at least two problems are explained: first, the postmen at the Southwest Water Post secretly reported to these peasants; .

  Zhao Han arrived at the Southwest Water Station yesterday afternoon. He organized hundreds of farmers to stop him in half an afternoon and one night. These peasants were a force in the first place, Zhao Han couldn't possibly listen to what they said!

  However, Zhao Han was amiable and said with a smile: "If you have any grievances, push a leader to come over and talk."

  A man in his thirties stood up and took a few steps, then knelt down in front of Zhao Han: "Zhao Tianwang, Caomin is Chen Fushun, a villager from Shitang Village..."

   Zhao Han could guess a few words in Cantonese, but he was completely blinded by a long sentence.

  The accompanying interpreter came to Zhao Han and scolded, "Say it sentence by sentence!"

  This person stated for a long time, and finally explained the cause and effect clearly, but it was an old case that happened last year.

  The two villages are called Shanghe Village and Xiahe Village for the convenience of understanding.

  The drought was severe last year, and Shanghe Village cut off the river to irrigate the paddy fields. Xiahe Village was not angry, and went to fight for water, and more than 20 people were injured.

   When the complaint was made to the government, the magistrate refused to file the case.

  Because according to Zhu Yuanzhang's "Jiaomin Bangwen", such disputes in the countryside cannot be reported to the officials at will, but must be handed over to the villagers for judgment. If you go around the old man and sue the officials, you will be punished with a staff of sixty, and you will be handed back to the old man for judgment.

  Thus, the Xiahe villagers who were robbed of their water source and injured more than 20 people had another meal at the county magistrate. The elders in Shanghe Village are more powerful, and Xiahe Village lost its water source, was injured by others, and finally had to chip in to pay for the soup and medicine.

   This thing is not over!

   During the autumn harvest season, the rice production in Xiahe Village was reduced by more than 70%, but Shanghe Village was not affected much. As a result, the villagers of Xiahe Village mobilized collectively and went directly to the threshing ground to grab grain.

   This move caught Kawamura by surprise.

  A few days later, Shanghe Village summoned people to retaliate, and Xiahe Village suffered a big loss, so Xiahe Village called up people again. For several consecutive rounds, more and more people participated in the fighting, and finally a battle broke out between the two sides with more than 3,000 people, involving a total of four villages.

   More than fifty people died!

  The county magistrate finally made a move, regardless of indiscrimination, both sides of the fighting arrested ten people, and executed them after the fall.

   Both parties refused to accept it, and went to the Xunyan Yushi to seek justice, and the Xunyan Yushi took the case to Dali Temple. However, the inspector censor was also on the sidelines, and when more than 50 people died in the fighting, only six people were reported dead, and he also spoke for Shanghe Village.

  Just because of Shanghe Village, someone is a high official in the imperial court.

  Finally, Dali Temple asked the magistrate to retrial. In Shanghe Village, only one person was beheaded, and the remaining nine people were acquitted, while in Xiahe Village, ten people were executed.

"Zhao Tianwang, please judge," Chen Fushun said, "Our village was first robbed of water and then injured. Even if the robbing of food was wrong, we were forced to be extremely hungry. I also recognized it. Why did they only kill one, and our village killed ten! The Ming court is so corrupt, from now on, our village will only recognize Zhao Tianwang, and ask Zhao Tianwang to be the master!"

   "I beg Zhao Tianwang to be the master!" Hundreds of farmers knelt down and shouted.

Zhao Han said expressionlessly: "Whoever taught you what you said just now, let him call for grievances, these gentry don't want to hide behind. I'll go back to the Southwest Water Station and wait, let the old gentry do it themselves .”

  Chen Fushun was stunned for a moment, then kowtowed and shouted: "I beseech King Zhao to be the master!"

  Zhao Han didn't bother to pay attention, turned around and left, and returned to the post station in a carriage.

  After waiting for half a day at the post station, several villagers came one after another. They wanted to talk, but they were ordered to shut up, and they continued to wait at the station together.

  By the next day, more than a dozen gentry were present in the villages on both sides of the fighting.

   "Separate interrogation!" Zhao Han ordered.

  Due to the lack of officials, missionaries, and backbone of the peasant association, Sanshui County only has an acting magistrate appointed by Fei Ruhe. This is a wartime appointment, mainly to take over documents and warehouses.

  As for the distribution of fields, it may take one or two months before they can be distributed to surrounding villages in Sanshui County.

   More than a dozen gentry were interrogated separately for a full day.

  If the respective confessions are not correct, the interrogation will continue until midnight of the next day. During this period, he could only drink water, but could not eat or sleep.

Chen Maosheng held the final interrogation results and said with a wry smile: "Hundred years of grievances, I can't tell. Whoever is the official university will bully others. This time you suffer, and that time I suffer. Generally speaking, the downstream villages suffer. some more."

   "Are those who kneel down and cry for grievances, are they farmers or tenant farmers?" Zhao Han asked.

   "Most of them are tenants," Chen Maosheng said, "There are a few tenants with extremely complicated identities, and I have never encountered them in Jiangxi Fentian."

   Zhao Han became interested and asked, "How complicated?"

Chen Maosheng explained: "The clans here are extremely powerful, and each clan has a public land. Some clansmen with close blood can rent the public land of the clan, and the land rent is relatively low. Because there is no need to pay land taxes, no need to obey Corvée, their life is even comparable to small landlords in Jiangxi. If they encounter a disaster year, they can get relief from the clan. They can even go to the ancestral hall to borrow money if they want to do business.”

  Zhao Han said: "The clan uses the public land to control the clan members who are close to the blood, thus forming the cohesion of the big clan. They also use the private land to control other tenants. Therefore, every time there is a fight, you can call thousands of people to fight?"

   "That's it!" Chen Maosheng nodded.

  The clan can be compared to the sect of cultivating immortals. The population in the clan is the core disciples, those with closer blood ties are the inner disciples, and those with more distant blood ties are the outer disciples.

   There is family property and family land, and this is used as a means of control. They also opened private schools, built bridges and paved roads, gathered people's hearts and controlled everything. Ordinary tenants were exploited and had to be grateful to the landlord. Class conflicts are transferred directly to the outside, and when people's hearts are uncertain, they fight with the neighboring village. The conflicts were all transferred to the next-door village, thus forming a feud between the two villages.

  Public trials and so on, can't be done here.

  Because the tenants were exploited badly, they didn't hate the landlord, but the villagers in the next-door village. It seems that their troubled life is caused by the neighboring village.

   "It's a bit difficult to advance." Chen Maosheng sighed.

  Zhao Han said: "It's not good to be soft, just come hard. Half of the main sect members of each family will be killed directly, and the other half will be arrested for mining."

  Chen Maosheng smiled wryly: "These gentry have good reputations. They have been doing good things like building bridges and paving roads, helping neighbors, and spreading enlightenment."

"Doing good deeds can make you guilty? The crime is ready-made, inciting the people to fight, causing dozens of deaths and injuries," Zhao Han planned to be ruthless this time. And share them all. Also, if we continue to fight with weapons in the future, we will not only punish the culprits, but none of the participants will be able to run away. One acre of land from each of them will be confiscated once in the fight with weapons!"

  To solve the main sect is to disintegrate the head.

  Dividing land and property will inevitably lead to psychological imbalances among the three types of people who are descendants of the clan, those who are closer by blood, and those who are farther by blood, and internal conflicts will arise. Ordinary tenants are completely taken care of. In the future, if the clan wants to get together to make trouble, it is estimated that there will be an internal fight, and there is no way to think about unifying the outside world.

  Sanshui County is not far from Guangzhou. Zhao Han directly mobilized the army and began to "handle" disputes in troublesome villages.

  The Chen Fushun who took the lead in kneeling and calling for grievances was a tenant with a closer blood relationship.

  He watched helplessly as his grandfather's family was captured by King Zhao's soldiers. Originally, I was resentful, thinking that Zhao Tianwang would also help the neighboring village, but someone came to promote the division of land and production that day.

  Giving the fields of the grandfather's house to yourself?

  Chen Fushun was stunned for a long time, and suddenly felt that it was a good thing that the grandfather was arrested, and it was best for the whole family not to be released in this lifetime.

  During the division of fields, Chen Fushun was very angry again.

  Why does an ordinary tenant have the same number of acres as he is allocated? Obviously this is his clan field, and his blood relationship is much closer.

   Soon, Chen Fushun's anger died down again. Because he discovered that the property allocated to the clan's children was actually the same as his own. Isn't this psychologically balanced?

   Not only psychologically balanced, but also secretly happy.

   Soon he became jealous again, because the disciples of the sect could be assigned to the store. The number of shops in the town is very small, so it is definitely not enough, but the children of the clan who have not been allocated can also be allocated a part of the floating wealth.

  The whole process of dividing the fields seemed extremely strange.

   Except for the non-clan tenants who are only happy, everyone else is both happy and dissatisfied. Because they all got benefits, they didn't hate Zhao Han, but hated each other.

   These two villages were purely at gunpoint, and Liwei was killed by Zhao Han.

  It is impossible to kill and divide the land like this in Guangdong. Zhao Han plans to forcefully emigrate to Huguang for the remaining big families. Some of the rich families in Huguang will also break up and move to other states and counties. Anyway, some states and counties in Huguang are extremely short of population.

   Zhao Han handed over the work of dividing the fields in the two "demonstration villages" to Chen Maosheng, and he himself went to Guangzhou to communicate with merchants.

  (end of this chapter)