"Have all the baby towers been demolished?"
Listening to Wang Mazi's report, Zhang Mingtu was a little surprised.
But on second thought, it seems reasonable.
The Baby Tower incident is not an isolated incident. Giving some food to a disaster victim does not mean that the current situation can be changed.
What the victims need are houses, land, farmland, oxen, and... fairness.
Unfortunately, all of this is in the hands of wealthy and powerful families, and even in the hands of the county magistrate.
The county magistrate would feel distressed if he were asked to transfer a load of grain from the national treasury to provide disaster relief.
After all, he could still resell the grain in the national treasury. Asking the county magistrate to take out the land under his name and give it to the peasants in his eyes was even more painful than killing him.
It's not easy to spit out what you have put in your mouth.
The assessment of officials is related to the local reputation and fame. When the inspectors come to inspect, they will investigate the local situation and listen to the opinions of the local "people" to see whether the county magistrate is popular among the people and whether he has high prestige among the people.
But the "people" in the eyes of the inspectors are not the same as the "people" in the mouths of ordinary people.
The inspectors investigated and questioned the local scholars and local gentry.
If they say good things, the corresponding assessment scores will be high, and it will be easy to get an A or above.
The county magistrate refused to share the meat in his mouth, and the local wealthy families were also unwilling to share the meat in their homes, so there was no way to solve the problem of the baby tower.
But the county magistrate always had a way. He ordered that the baby towers were too cruel and immoral, so he directly ordered them to be demolished in all places, and no one dared to disobey.
As soon as this order was given, all the baby towers near Jianyi were demolished, and the corpses inside were moved to a mass grave and buried randomly.
You see, the county magistrate always has a way, and he solves it quite cleverly.
There are no baby towers to be seen in the entire Jianyi. The masters are kind-hearted and cannot bear to see the sufferings of the world.
Wang Mazi also told Zhang Mingtu in detail what he had done, and Zhang Mingtu nodded after hearing it.
In this world, if we want ordinary people to survive, if we want the poor to survive, without considering open rebellion, what Wang Mazi did is quite feasible.
Collect enough land and then rent it to local residents at a very low price.
"This...this feeling, why does it feel like a local wealthy family?"
Zhang Mingtu chewed it carefully for a couple of times and felt something strange for some reason.
In order to protect the vast number of ordinary civilians in Jianyi, a large amount of farmland is needed.
If all these lands were registered under the name of one person and rented out to local civilian farmers for cultivation at a very low rent, then the person who owned these lands would probably be the largest landlord in Jianyi.
"I wanted to wipe out the local gentry families, but after I wiped them out, I would become the new gentry family?"
Zhang Mingtu always felt that this was too ironic, but at the moment, it seemed to be the only viable path.
Even if he had the ability to take large tracts of fertile land from wealthy families, after distributing them to local farmers, it would not be long before these good people who owned the farmland would soon become refugees again due to various natural disasters such as floods and droughts.
Their land and property would soon be swallowed up by local landlords. This was a common occurrence and had been happening in this area for thousands of years.
Individual power is often too fragile and can be easily destroyed.
Unless there are truly powerful means to break the original order, there will be corresponding laws and regulations to protect the local good citizens and safeguard their interests.
Otherwise, it won’t be long before everything returns to the starting point and falls into a death cycle again.
Zhang Mingtu began to miss his hometown.
"We might be able to save one or two people, but unless we have as much land and property as the Wang and Li families, everything will soon return to its original state, or even be worse than before..."
After Wang Mazi dealt with the matter of the baby tower, he treated Zhang Mingtu with more respect and spoke more clearly.
What he said was very clear. The situation in Jianyi was rotten to the core. At most, they could save a small number of people, and they were powerless to do anything for the rest.
Zhang Mingtu narrowed his eyes, thinking of what was about to happen, and whispered, "Owning such vast farmland as the Wang and Li families..."
"Master, what did you say?"
Zhang Mingtu shook his head and said nothing more, but he actually already had a plan in mind.
The great purge from Ruihai will come soon. The King of Jianyi, the Li Er family and even many smaller families will all collapse in this purge.
After careful calculation, the land seized through various means amounted to more than 100,000 acres, and this was after deducting the part whose original owner could be found.
More than 100,000 acres of land will be put on official auctions or in brokerages for free trading.
After that incident, the prices of all the proposed land were frighteningly low for a while. This was a wave of great benefits issued by the government or Ruihai, intended to benefit ordinary local people.
But ordinary people cannot afford even that tiny price.
They had long been squeezed dry by the wealthy families, and it was difficult for them to have enough food and clothing every day, let alone save any extra money.
But they can't buy it, but Zhang Mingtu can.
"I have to thank my good brother for this!"
Zhang Mintu couldn't help but think of the brother who had discovered all the wealth, both open and hidden, in Jianyi.
If you collect this huge fortune, you can even buy more than 100,000 acres of land.
"Let's give it a try. Money is of no use to me anyway. I don't love money and I don't touch it much. I just want peace of mind."
Ordinary money in the mortal world is of little use to Zhang Mingtu and cannot provide him with any help in his cultivation.
In that case, why not let it all go and make him feel better.
"But I can't show my face in public to do this, and I have to change my identity..."
Zhang Mingtu couldn't help but think of the Zhang family. If the Zhang family knew that he had quietly taken over these hundreds of thousands of acres of land, many people in the Zhang family might rely on him for their livelihood.
Zhang Mingtu had no doubt that after possessing such huge wealth, the Zhang family would most likely transform into a wealthy family like the Wang and Li families after one or two generations.
Everyone says that they will not forget their original aspirations, but as times change and circumstances evolve, how many people can truly remember their original aspirations and not forget their mission?
Human nature can never stand the test. If you have huge wealth, you can spend it all every day and easily get other people's land and wealth without any illegal means.
Zhang Mintu believes that the person who will be in charge of such a huge fortune in the future will definitely change his heart and become a bad person.
Zhang Mingtu had studied Marx's works after all, and knew clearly that there were only people who betrayed their class, but no class that betrayed its class.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
