Daming: The system rejected my request for salted fish

Chapter 1057

At the same time, in Suzhou City, Wei Wu also got up early and brought his men to the yamen.

Because Zhou Li had difficulty walking, Wei Wu only brought Zhang Hai and Master Zheng this time.

When he arrived at the study, Zhu Zongshan was concentrating on reading one booklet after another.

"Master Zhu, why are you so busy?"

When Zhu Zongshan heard Wei Wu's voice, he realized that Wei Wu had come, so he immediately stood up and saluted in response.

"Sir, these are all the Yellow Books and Fish Scale Books brought back from the county government office down below. I am proofreading them one by one."

"Oh, you got it back so soon, there must be results."

Upon hearing this, Wei Wu raised his eyebrows and immediately came to Zhu Zongshan, picked up a book and prepared to read it.

But before he could open it, Zhu Zongshan handed him two booklets and said indignantly:

"Please look, sir. This is a comparison between my government office and the county office. It's just as you said. These people did it this way."

Wei Wu took the two booklets in his hands, and after flipping through a few pages, his expression turned cold.

There was nothing wrong with most of the items in this booklet, but in one certain area, all the people's land was the same.

Each household owns 29 mu of land, which is just within the maximum range of land that can be owned by the lower households.

"I didn't expect the people in this county to be so wealthy. One or two of them have so much land, even the amount is the same."

After hearing what Wei Wu said, Zhu Zongshan's face became even angrier, and he picked out a few more booklets.

"It's not just this one county; several other counties are like this. These people don't even pretend, and the number is the same."

"It's all my fault for arriving too late. If I had brought the two volumes earlier, they wouldn't have been able to succeed."

"Now these people have completed the mortgage-for-sale and even paid the mortgage tax, making all the land legally owned."

To be honest, Wei Wu didn't expect these people to act so quickly, and a hint of anger appeared on his face.

In fact, he was in a good mood today because Ma Baoguo's plan was implemented very smoothly.

In addition, Zhou Li's surrender allowed him to obtain more intelligence, and he was ready for the next step.

Before yesterday, Wei Wu was still thinking about competing with these people in a battle of wits and courage, using various tactics to play back and forth.

But Zhou Li and Ma Baoguo gave Wei Wu the opportunity to work wonders and directly defeat these people.

But now, these people have transferred all the land, so even if the property is confiscated, it will not fall into the hands of the court.

Just as Wei Wu frowned and pondered over a countermeasure, Master Zheng beside him suddenly asked Wei Wu a question in a low voice.

"Master, are you in trouble?"

Hearing Master Zheng speak, Wei Wu did not hide anything and told him the problem directly, and then talked about the matter of pawning instead of selling.

After hearing this, Master Zheng said:

"Master, can you please let me take a look at these yellow books?"

"Look!"

Wei Wu nodded, and then handed all the yellow books that Zhu Zongshan had given him to Master Zheng.

Although this was somewhat illegal, Zhu Zongshan didn't say anything and just watched silently from the side.

After flipping through several yellow books, Master Zheng suddenly smiled.

"Master, I think you're overthinking it. We can still confiscate the property, and the land won't be lost."

"Oh, Master, please continue."

As soon as Master Zheng finished speaking, Wei Wu knew that he must have an idea. Sure enough, Master Zheng immediately said:

"Master, these people have good ideas, but they are just too greedy. If they weren't so greedy, I really wouldn't be able to help them."

"According to the land prices set by the imperial court, the price of one mu of high-quality land should be between five and ten taels, and most of the land in Jiangnan is high-quality land."

"But these people took advantage of the loopholes and used the special nature of pawning to avoid the court's price setting, and actually pawned 29 mu of land for 5 taels."

At this point, Master Zheng couldn't help but laugh out loud, and that laughter was filled with undisguised contempt.

"I'm afraid they still think they're smart. By only using five taels of silver for the transaction, they can pay much less mortgage tax."

"But they seem to have forgotten that the contract stipulates that it cannot be transferred within a certain period of time, and the most crucial thing is that the silver must be repaid upon receipt."

"Contracts are always made in duplicate, and we have the Yellow Book in our hands, so we know who owns these fields."

Wei Wu, who was familiar with Master Zheng, immediately understood what Master Zheng was thinking, so he took over the conversation and said:

"You mean, when the imperial court raids the house, just search it and then check the transaction records in the yellow book."

"Use the price stated on the deed to redeem the land from the people. This money was confiscated from their homes anyway."

"The common people are timid. Once something happens to these big families, they will definitely worry about whether they will be implicated."

Master Zheng smiled and nodded, then continued:

"Yes, the people don't want to get into trouble with the government, and they can get five taels of silver for free, so they will naturally cooperate."

"Then tell them that the land confiscated by the court will eventually be rented to them at a very low price."

"With money in hand and the ability to rent land cheaply, there's no one who wouldn't want a peaceful and stable life!"

Master Zheng had been with Wei Wu for so long that he was naturally very familiar with the issue of distributing the land tax based on land use.

Therefore, his ideas were basically in line with Wei Wu's desired results, and Wei Wu was very satisfied with them.

"Very good, very good, Master Zhu, from now on, just do as the master says!"

"Yes, sir, but..."

Zhu Zongshan also thought that Master Zheng’s method was good, so he responded immediately, but he still had a question.

When Wei Wu and Master Zheng were talking before, they lowered their voices on purpose, and Zhu Zongshan didn't deliberately listen.

Later, when he heard the two people talking about the house search, he wanted to speak, but in the end he held himself back.

Now that the plan has been made, he feels he needs to ask.

"Sir, you just told me about confiscating their property, but what evidence did you have on them?"

Upon hearing this, Wei Wu laughed and said directly without any intention of hiding anything from Zhu Zongshan:

"Nothing, those people were just planning to find someone to kill me, and in order to make them make up their minds, I deliberately gave them a push."

"what???"

Upon hearing Wei Wu's answer, Zhu Zongshan's face froze.