The next day, the headquarters issued a notice and complaints came in like snowflakes.

Hai Rui also kept his promise and only asked Tian Tongpan and others to register the petition carefully, but did not immediately bring the case to court.

However, he was not idle. He used these few days to lead Niu Qianshi and other high-ranking officials, as well as officials from Songjiang Prefecture and Huating County, to go to the countryside to preach the benefits of the Single Whip Law and the equal distribution of land and grain in each village. He must make the people understand that the previous contributions and false letters are no longer valid.

The government will also give them a chance to make corrections. This time they must truthfully declare the actual number of their own land areas, and wait for the government to register it. Taxes will be levied based on this in the future.

This is not only to deal with the Xu family, but also the only way to implement the new policy of Yingtian.

Huating County has eight townships with more than 3.6 million mu of arable land, which is equivalent to the number of mu of three counties in Suzhou. It is also the county with the most land in the whole of Jiangnan. More land means more landlords and more troubles, so Hai Rui decided to use Huating as the first stop to promote reform.

As long as Huating can successfully complete the reform, Songjiang Prefecture and Suzhou Prefecture will also be solved. Once the problems of Susong are solved, the remaining eight prefectures and one state will naturally be a piece of cake.

Hai Rui's efforts were not in vain. Under the officials' dedicated propaganda, the common people in various villages in Huating were aroused and reported the situation to the government one after another, accusing them of how their land was occupied by wealthy families and how they were reduced to tenants.

In response, Hai Rui ordered his clerks to write petitions on the spot, accept reports from the public, and announced that they would be tried together after returning to the yamen.

~~

Three days later, Hai Rui returned to the provincial capital and asked Tian Baiguang to do a count, and found that he had received eight or nine thousand confessions.

At this time, Xu Jie's reply also arrived.

Hai Rui unfolded the letter in front of Niu Chenshi and others, and saw that the plan proposed by Xu Ge Lao was: 1. All the servants were allowed to leave on their own, and they would be given written documents and would not be retained. 2. All the land registered in the name of the Xu family were allowed to be taken by the original owners, and the Xu family would cooperate in the transfer and would not obstruct. 3. He was willing to donate all the land purchased in the past five years, totaling 40,000 acres, to the government as school land to benefit his hometown.

After reading it, Hai Rui calmly handed the letter to Niu Chenshi and others for circulation.

Niu Qianshi and the others were very happy when they saw this, and felt that the Xu family was still very sincere. Especially Zhong Zhengji, he was obviously relieved.

As they were discussing excitedly, they saw that Hai Rui still looked unhappy, so they quickly shut up.

"Zhongcheng, what's wrong with the plan?" Niu Chenshi asked in a low voice.

"The first two are fine, but the third one..." Hai Rui began to search on the table. After a while, he found a booklet, opened a page, and read:

"As of October last year, the Xu family had 273 households with a total of 1.37 million mu of land under their names. Excluding land donated, swindled, and held by relatives, the four brothers of the Xu family had a total of 460,000 mu of land under their names, of which the total under the names of the Xu family father and son was more than 240,000 mu."

As he said this, he glanced at Zhong Zhenji and said, "Prefect Zhong, am I right?"

"Almost, almost..." Zhong Zhengji nodded and wiped his sweat secretly. He had done some research before and found that the land under the name of the Xu family was probably about this amount.

Lord Hai did not have access to the land register files of Songjiang Prefecture, so how did he come up with this number?

However, Niu Chenshi remembered that Hai Rui had been calculating the tax accounts of various prefectures every day since last year. He did not expect that he could find out the mystery from them.

He was just about to flatter Hai Gong and praise him for his foresight and ability to see the big picture from the small details, but Hai Rui's expression suddenly changed. He slammed the booklet on the table and said in a low voice:

"Even if we rule out the first two, the Xu family still has 460,000 acres of land! A full 460,000 acres. What's the point of these 40,000 acres?!"

Hai Rui became angrier and angrier as he spoke. He slammed the table and said, "If the gentry everywhere follows suit and only clears out one or two tenths of the land, not only will the return of the land become a mere formality, but even the Single Whip Law will become an evil law!"

Hai Rui was an experienced and capable official, not a bookworm who knew nothing. He knew that any reform would inevitably go astray in its implementation.

No matter how the reforms were carried out, it was impossible to avoid the most difficult taxes to be collected from officials. Even if those powerful families did not collude with the government to evade taxes, they would have been exempted if there were officials in their families. Moreover, their relatives could also benefit from it, and the final tax exemption amount would far exceed the regulations. However, this had been tacitly accepted by the government for many years, and Hai Rui could not change it for the time being.

As a result of the high concentration of land, even the Single Whip System could not transfer most of the corvee to large landowners, but would instead increase the burden on most taxpayers.

The reason is simple. If it is impossible to collect taxes from the big landlords, then naturally it has to be levied back from the small landlords and farmers.

That is why Hai Rui placed the suppression of annexation at a higher level than the Single Whip Law, because he had long seen through that the obstacle to all land-related reforms was annexation.

~~

After much thought, Hai Rui picked up his pen and wrote a reply to Xu Jie, then handed it to Niu Chenshi and others, asking them if they had anything to add.

Niu Chenshi and the others were so stunned that they were speechless.

"Since you're not saying anything, that means you have no objection?" Hai Rui folded the letter, put it into an envelope, sealed it with glue, and prepared to let the Xu family member who delivered the letter take it back.

"Wait!" Niu Chenshi finally came to his senses and stopped him, saying, "Zhongcheng, think twice!"

"Yes, Lord Du, Lord Xu will definitely not agree to it." Zhong Zhenji also wiped his sweat and said, "That's a full 460,000 acres of land, which can't be bought with 10 million taels of silver. How can the Xu family give up all of it!"

"Once this letter came out, the relationship between the two sides was completely broken off, and there is no room for maneuver!" Commissioner Wang and others also advised him to calm down and not be blinded by anger.

"Did our court ask them to give up everything?" Hai Rui looked at his frightened subordinates with a strange expression and said, "We clearly agreed to let his family keep 6,000 acres, and it's tax-free land. Isn't that enough to support his family?"

"Uh..." The officials thought, six thousand acres is just a drop in the bucket. And isn't it too humiliating?

"Furthermore, the Xu family has 20,000 weavers, six mansions, four gardens, and more than 200 shops in the two capitals of the north and south, Suzhou, Songjiang, and other places. The value of these shops, business houses, and residences is more than 10 million taels! Their origins may not stand up to scrutiny, right? This time, I am not going to investigate. Isn't that enough for the Xu family?"

"When Lord Xu entered office, his family was only moderately well-off. In just over twenty years, he had accumulated a fortune of more than 20 million taels. Can we put all the blame on his children and grandchildren?" Hai Rui said angrily again:

"Lord Yan and Yan Shifan are known as the most corrupt officials in the world, but they only have a quarter of the Xu family's assets. If we don't help the Xu family get rid of the swelling quickly, how will the history books evaluate Lord Xu in the future?!"

After hearing what Lord Hai said, the officials thought it made sense. But how could Lord Xu agree to it?

There was something Hai Rui didn't say explicitly, which was to let Lord Xu take 460,000 acres of land in exchange for the safety of his entire family and forgiveness of past wrongs. He felt that he had done his utmost and even felt a little sorry for Lin Run.

If Lin Run hadn't asked Zhao Hao to say that, he wouldn't have been able to make the decision to let the Xu family go.

If someone still doesn't know what's good for him, then don't blame me for being ruthless.

ps. Second update, please give me your monthly vote!