"This evil policy of charging land tax harms the country and the people. It should have been abolished long ago!"

"The imperial court is unjust, and it has separated me from my wife and children."

"You promised never to increase taxes, but now you've imposed taxes on us and taken away our land and guests. We're suffering terribly!"

All kinds of slogans rang out.

Don’t think that there were no marches and demonstrations in ancient times. In fact, there were quite a lot of them during the Northern Song Dynasty.

For example, in the third year of Jingyou, the court wanted to lay off more than 500 officials from the Three Departments. These officials ran to the doorsteps of Lu Yijian and Wang Zeng's homes to make trouble, and also ran to the doorstep of the Chief Censor Du Yan's home to curse, throw tiles and stones in protest.

In the second year of Jiayou, Ouyang Xiu dismissed thousands of students because of the Taixue system, which led to them gathering thousands of people to march and demonstrate in Bianliang, besieging Ouyang Xiu's residence and his official sedan chair.

During the first year of the Jingkang reign, the Jin army laid siege to the city, and tens of thousands of Bianliang citizens protested, forcing Emperor Qinzong of Song to appoint Li Gang, the pro-war prime minister. Over 200 eunuchs were beaten to death during the process, and Bianliang was thrown into chaos.

Therefore, marches and demonstrations have been quite common since ancient times. Even when Emperor Yongzheng of the Qing Dynasty implemented the land-based tax system, a large number of landlords went to the Zhejiang government office to find Li Wei to protest.

At this time, because the court did not deal with the landlords' protests immediately, after a year of fermentation, the matter became more and more serious. Thousands of landlords and their slaves broke into Hangzhou City, causing the traffic in and outside Hangzhou to be almost paralyzed.

That's still good.

During the Republic of China period, the night soil collectors in Shanghai and Guangzhou went on strike, which was really severe. The whole city was filthy, but the fragrance spread for miles.

The Liangzhe Road Transport Commissioner's Office was located in the government office inside Fengyu Gate, close to West Lake.

The parade street on the east side of West Lake has white walls and gray tiles, willows swaying in the wind, pleasure boats line the lake, and brothels stand on the lakeside. It is the time for tourists to enjoy the beautiful scenery.

As a result, a large number of protesters poured in, and the east bank of West Lake was suddenly crowded with people. There was even a stampede, and the riots continued.

There were countless people outside the Transport Commissioner's Office, shouting and demanding that the court stop the policy of dividing the land tax by land.

"Bang!"

At this moment, inside the government office, Du Qi, the Liangzhe Road Transport Commissioner, was furious when he heard the news. He slammed the table and shouted, "What? Say it again!"

The clerk below hurriedly said, "Commander-in-Chief, at least ten thousand people have descended upon the city, blocking the streets and shouting and yelling. The bustling market has come to a halt, and the people are rushing home to avoid the crowds. Those who haven't hesitated have been trampled and injured."

"These bastards."

Du Qi stood up from the table, put his hands behind his back, and immediately began to think.

It has been making a fuss lately, but he doesn't care.

This is the intention of the imperial court. According to the prefect, this is also the last chance given to these landlords in Liangzhe Road.

As long as they behave themselves and get through this period peacefully, everything will be fine in the future.

But they obviously don't want that.

The matter is getting bigger and bigger. Before, there were only one or two thousand people at most, but now there are tens of thousands of people gathered. What are they trying to do? Are they trying to rebel?

Du Qi wanted to send troops to suppress the rebellion at that time, but then he thought that he had no military power and could only mobilize the government officials.

The number of yamen runners is not enough to suppress the situation.

He hesitated for a moment, then said, "Send someone out to maintain order on the street first, to prevent anyone from getting trampled and injured."

"yes."

The official went out.

Du Qi was working in the government office today, and was originally dealing with other matters, so it happened that the Deputy Envoy of Transportation, Ren Maocheng, was also there.

Hearing Du Qi's words, Ren Maocheng hesitated and said, "Master Si, are you going to just ignore it?"

"How do we manage it?"

Du Qi spread his hands and said, "If we want to suppress it, we must send troops. Do we have the troops on hand?"

"That"

Ren Maocheng asked, "Should we send someone to the capital to report to the prefect immediately?"

"Hmm"

Du Qi narrowed his eyes and thought deeply.

Under normal circumstances, if such a thing happens during one's term of office, if one does not suppress it and instead reports it, one will definitely be punished.

Historically, the reason why Nong Zhigao repeatedly wrote to the imperial court but received no response was that the prefect of Yongzhou intercepted the letters.

After all, if the imperial court knew that the Jiaozhi people often invaded the border of the Song Dynasty and Yongzhou was unable to deal with it, then the imperial court would only think that the Yongzhou prefect was incompetent, which would affect their careers.

Therefore, many times, officials would suppress such matters with a greater impact and not allow them to spread out, in order to prevent them from being reported to the court.

But now Du Qi obviously cannot be blamed for this matter, because he had wanted to deal with the landlords for a long time, but Zhao Jun gave him a secret order to let the situation develop, which led to the current situation.

Although the Dean did not explicitly say why he did this, Du Qi was not stupid and could vaguely guess something.

There are only two points.

Firstly, as the governor said on the surface, it is to give the landlords a chance, hoping that they will invest their wealth in industries such as steel, cement, and brick factories to contribute to industrial development.

Secondly.

Du Qi raised his head, looked at Ren Maocheng and said, "Don't rush to report this matter."

"Why?"

Ren Maocheng was stunned and said, "Commander-in-Chief, this matter has become so serious. If we don't report it, the other four departments will also report it, including the Imperial City Department."

"It's up to them whether they want to report it or not. We won't report it anyway."

Du Qi shook his head.

"What if the imperial court blames us?"

Ren Maocheng hesitated.

Du Qi smiled and said, "No, we won't report any credit for this."

"Any merit? This, this, this."

Ren Maocheng was dumbfounded. Is it possible to be rewarded for not reporting the knowledge?

How is that possible?

However, Du Qi smiled mysteriously and said, "I heard that the imperial court is planning to build a railway from Kaifeng to Nanyang this year. Most of the land along the railway line is wasteland, but there is also some farmland. Do you know how the imperial court will solve this problem?"

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