"The house is rather simple, so please make do with it for one night."

Neither Bian Shun nor Bian Yong were married. Their house was quite spacious, as it was left to them by their parents, who passed away a few years ago after being seriously ill.

Liang Jiugong had the room tidied up, and then sent two skilled cooks to the stove to prepare a meal.

Bian Yong and Bian Shun originally wanted to cook, but Liang Jiugong refused. He had eaten farm food along the way, but there was almost nothing good to eat. It wasn't a problem with his cooking skills, but he just couldn't bear to put too much food in it.

Liang Jiugong gave them more money, and they were encouraged to cook for themselves if possible. They could manage once, but if they ate too often, it would be too much of a burden.

During dinner that evening, Bian Yong and Bian Shun discussed the issue of taxes. When Kangxi heard this, he was immediately puzzled: "Didn't your area exempt itself from taxes last year, this year, and next year? Why do you still have to pay?"

Bian Yong and Bian Shun were shocked when they heard this.

Bian Yong said, "Our place has been like this for decades, and we've never been exempted from taxes."

Emperor Kangxi frowned. He ordered a tax exemption so that the people could have more food to eat. In this area alone, Emperor Kangxi had already exempted taxes twice during his reign, and each time it lasted for three years.

His father, the Emperor, had previously implemented a policy of tax exemption, but Bian Yong said that they had never had a tax exemption in their area for decades.

Bian Shunshun added, "Let alone tax exemption, even during the severe drought more than ten years ago, when many people in the village starved to death, the taxes were still paid. Before and after that year, several villages were struggling. We were still young then, and almost overnight, many people were gone. Later we found out they had been sold. They couldn't get enough to eat and had to sell their children. The village used to have a lot of people, but because of that disaster, there are so few people left in the village."

Emperor Kangxi remembered that severe drought when the disaster victims were almost heading to the capital. He ordered disaster relief and allocated a lot of relief funds, sending a considerable amount of silver and grain to the area.

But the fact is that he gave them the money, but these people didn't receive it.

Bian Yong asked, "I just heard you mention the tax exemption. What's that all about?"

Emperor Kangxi explained, “We are merchants from the capital. Last year, His Majesty ordered the exemption of taxes in some areas, and your area is within the tax-exempt region for three years.”

"No one has ever mentioned this before. Every year at the appointed time, government officials will come to collect the grain."

The more Kangxi listened, the more he realized the problem was serious. It involved disaster relief funds from over a decade ago, as well as the issue of arbitrary tax collection in the surrounding areas.

These are no small matters. To put it bluntly, what these people did was like tearing Kangxi's heart out. He was so worried about the country and its people, and yet when he tried to build a house with his own private funds, the people in the court kept gossiping about it.

The officials below them, instead of ensuring disaster relief funds were properly disbursed, dared to collect taxes privately.

Emperor Kangxi did so much, but it all benefited corrupt officials; it would be strange if he were comfortable with it.

When do the yamen runners come to collect the grain each year?

"After the summer and autumn harvests, some families had to pay with silver because they couldn't sell their grain."

Emperor Kangxi was puzzled again. Even if grain tax was levied, it would be based on the yield per mu (unit of land area), and the amount collected would be a portion of the tax. It shouldn't be repaid with silver.

"How are your grain payments calculated?"

"It was based on the number of people. Each household paid twice a year, one qian of silver each time, so each person had to pay two qian of silver a year. Newborn babies were no exception. Some people even drowned their newborn daughters to avoid these taxes. Others couldn't afford to pay the silver and didn't even have a household registration."

The land in the mountains is difficult to cultivate, and the meager amount of grain is simply not enough to pay taxes. The villagers are able to survive only because more and more people are living without household registration, and the mountains have been generously providing for them over the years. Otherwise, these mountain people would have been extinct long ago.

"Don't you guys think this is unreasonable?"

Bian Shun shook his head: "What can we ordinary people do even if we have doubts about things in government offices? We can't fight city hall. Can we, as common people, reason with the officials?"

This was the kind of thing Emperor Kangxi hated to hear the most. As an emperor, if the common people dared not reason with officials under his rule, it was practically an indication of his incompetence.

Bian Yong continued, "When we weren't pushed to the brink, we did think of ways to find a way out. We had heard that we could go to the capital to appeal to the emperor. There was a man who was driven to the point of losing his family and had such a plan. But someone leaked his plan to appeal to the emperor, and he was beaten to death on the way out of the mountains before he even left. After that, no one dared to say anything. They said and did nothing. At least they still had their lives to live. Even if they had a hard life, it was better than losing their lives."

When Bian Yong and Bian Shun talked about these things, they were calm and showed no resentment. They had long been numb to such situations.

Kangxi fell silent, his face grim.

Youqing asked, "How many babies have been born in your village in recent years?"

Bian Shundao said, "With poor harvests and poor food and clothing, women are already finding it difficult to conceive. In addition, every year some people drown female infants to avoid paying taxes, so most of the boys in the village are not married, let alone have children. In a few more years, the village may not even exist."

Bian Shunyu became somewhat saddened when talking about this. He and Bian Yong were not young, in their mid-twenties, and were skilled hunters. Having lost their parents at a young age, they were also good at housework. However, even so, they could not find wives; they truly had no women.

What Bian Shun and Bian Yong didn't say was that if things continued like this, their village and several nearby villages planned to become bandits. How do bandits come about? Most of them come about this way. When people are driven to desperation, they always have to find a way to survive, and to survive, they have to take risks.

The same was true of Sun Qingfeng and his gang that Youqing encountered in Yunnan. If they hadn't been forced into it, who would have wanted to become a bandit?

However, as more and more people in the village became unregistered, they gradually became no different from bandits.

Kangxi felt that there were problems with his governance, but he also had doubts. He ordered an investigation of Cao Yuxian and the beheaded county magistrate, as well as the people under the county government, but he did not find any problems with taxation.

The officials in the county government did not embezzle the money.

The main reason is that no one in the county government with a name or surname can afford to do this. The offense is serious, but the reward is not much. There are quite a few villages involved, but it's troublesome to collect the money. If people find out, it could lead to the extermination of nine generations of one's family. No matter how big or small the official is, they all know a little about the law and can distinguish the importance of this matter.

But where did this tax money go?

Emperor Kangxi is quite curious about this issue now.