Lawless in Great Song

In the third year of Jingyou, during Emperor Renzong's reign of the Song Dynasty, an unruly young man fell into the back garden of the Great Song Imperial Palace, thus beginning a life that wou...

Chapter 436: Rectifying Bad Habits, Starting from the North

After traveling through time, although I didn't see it with my own eyes, sometimes when the Dali Temple was solving cases, there would be all kinds of bizarre cases involving these feudal oppressions.

In the past, Zhao Jun did not focus on rectifying this situation.

It’s not that he doesn’t care about the lives of these oppressed people, but in comparison, the environment he faced at that time was much worse than it is now.

The Song Dynasty was plagued by serious problems of redundancy, levies and taxes, and countless harsh levies. Most of the people were suffering, with food and clothing being a problem. How could they control these bad habits?

Therefore, he had to first solve the court's financial problems, resolve the difficulties faced by the vast majority of the people in having enough food to eat, and patch up the big holes in the houses before he could address these gaps and minor problems.

Another reason is that in ancient times, imperial power did not extend to the countryside. In feudal society, dynasties lacked effective means of controlling the countryside and often needed local clans or local landlords to help manage it. Naturally, they could not change the clan's practice of lynching.

Just like Lu Xun’s family property was seized by his uncles and aunts, and he had nowhere to turn to for help.

Taking these two points into consideration, Zhao Jun has not carried out major reforms at the grassroots level. Most of the new policies currently in place only involve changes in taxes for officials, landlords and ordinary people.

As for the moral requirements for grassroots people, there are legal restrictions, but they do not cover many issues, and local officials are not omnipotent.

The county government does not have the ability to manage the people of the entire county. Many cases and incidents did not fail to occur, but were not reported to the county government, resulting in "the people do not report and the officials do not investigate."

Therefore, it is very rare for cases to be reported to the county government, then from the county government to the provincial government, the road government, and finally to the central government.

This gave the imperial court the illusion that the local situation was calm.

But things are very different now.

Although Zhao Jun has not yet carried out drastic reforms at the grassroots level, he has already made certain changes in rural areas in the north.

For example, it is not allowed to set up courts privately, the personal freedom of clan members cannot be restricted, and children born to concubines enjoy the same land rights, inheritance rights and education rights, so as to undermine the power of the clan.

At the same time, several villages in a county could unite to form a farmer's association. In order to prevent someone from not caring about public tools or taking them for themselves, the government did not fund the placement of farm tools within the farmer's association.

However, the government and the farmers' cooperatives had a relationship where the government purchased excess farm tools, livestock, granaries, etc. from farmers, and members of the farmers' cooperatives could rent these means of production at low prices to increase productivity.

If such a thing happened in the south, Zhao Jun would at most be punished, and there would be no way to carry out large-scale rectification.

But now that he has gained a certain amount of power at the grassroots level in the north, perhaps it is time to start using this power to crack down on the old customs and practices.

The caravan stopped by the river, and time passed by. The village on the east bank was still celebrating, completely unaware of the impending disaster.

After about half an hour, more than ten horses came galloping over.

The Lincheng County Magistrate and the County Lieutenant were both riding on horses, along with several yamen runners. Seven or eight miles further back, many more yamen runners were running as fast as they could, gasping for breath.

You have to know that this is the border, more than twenty miles away from Lincheng, about ten kilometers. It would take Jiang Dalang and his men more than twenty minutes to deliver the message on horseback, which shows how urgent the Lincheng County Magistrate was.

"Chichiwon!"

The county magistrate and the county lieutenant hurriedly dismounted and saluted in front of the carriage, their backs drenched in sweat.

Zhao Jun opened the curtains and glanced at them: "Are you the Lincheng Commander?"

"Your humble servant is Huang Anwen, the magistrate of Lincheng County."

Huang Anwen was about thirty years old. He was a Jinshi in the seventh year of the Qingli period. He finished his observation of government just last year and was transferred to Lincheng to serve as a county magistrate.

Zhao Jun asked, "Have the people from the Farmers' Association arrived?"

"Someone has been sent to call him."

Huang Anwen said hurriedly.

"Take your men and take control of all the people in this village."

Zhao Jun then said to Huang Sanlang, "Sanlang, go and capture the host family, interrogate them separately, and find out the whole story. Find the whereabouts of the mother and daughter who were sold to the brothel."

"yes."

Huang Sanlang immediately followed the order.

Under Zhao Jun's order, Huang Anwen's execution ability reached its peak. He waited for a while, and when the large group of yamen runners arrived in the rear, he immediately ordered the encirclement of the village.

Ancient villages had different layouts, some were clustered together, and some were scattered.

However, people in the Hebei plain area often live near rivers. For example, the layout of this village, called Dongyang Village because the tributary of the Lishui River is called Xiaoyang River and the village is located on the east bank of Xiaoyang River, is quite compact.

Most villagers live along the riverbank, and then several canals are diverted from the Xiaoyang River, bypassing the village and irrigating their fields to the east.

The east side of the village was originally an empty lot, but now a large mansion with three entrances and three exits has been built.

At this moment, the whole house was filled with joy. The whole village was invited to come and have a feast, which lasted for three days and three nights, with people having a wild and reveling party.

Although the people of the Song Dynasty now live and work in peace and contentment, and villagers can go to the county town to work as long as they have land, or even if they don’t have land, they will not starve to death, but who would despise free food?

Besides, everyone knows that the third son of the Liu family made money by doing business in the county town and is the richest man in the village. Naturally, everyone is very happy to take advantage of the rich.

Since most people in the village were eating inside or outside the big house, no one reacted when the yamen runners rushed over.

I saw hundreds of people who had just been eating enthusiastically, and a large number of yamen runners swarmed in. They all sat in their places, surrounding the long square table, holding the bowls in their hands, at a loss.

In the main house of the courtyard, several people were eating around a table. A man in his fifties was eating from a bowl, and two men in their forties next to him were smiling and inviting some influential people from the same village to eat and drink together.

This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content!