Chapter 606: Issues Left over From the Military Farming System
"What? The flag of the Han Dynasty has already flown over the city of Luoyang? There are still people in Sizhou who dare to do this?" Prince Liu Xuan was the first to be shocked, and his brows were furrowed deeper than Ma Su's.
He has also had great Confucian scholars teach him Confucianism and classics over the years, and Zhuge Liang has also taught him the key to local governance. Therefore, Liu Xuan has no good feelings towards these big families who are not obedient to the court and like to oppress self-cultivating farmers.
In Guanxi, under the auspices of Zhuge Liang, the Han Dynasty collected household registration deeds and hit a wave of local tyrants. This made the Guanxi big families spit out a lot of land and population, and also provided strong support for the taxation of Ji Han.
Liu Xuan strongly agreed with this move, so he was very surprised that this happened in Luoyang.
Ma Su was not so surprised after hearing about this. At present, the bureaucratic system in Luoyang has not been clear, and it is normal to have chaos. If these big families do not take the opportunity to encroach on the population and land, they will not be called big families.
"Let Chen Zhi check it out. Luoyang is newly occupied and still unstable. It is normal for the local big families to be not so polite." Ma Su waved his hand and said calmly.
"But now that they have all submitted to the Han Dynasty, they must be punished. I will do all this to shock and punish them, and the prince will come out at that time."
"All is up to the arrangements of the Prime Minister." Liu Xuan nodded.
But soon, Chen Zhi sent back news that things seemed a little complicated.
Because there was nothing wrong with the household registration and population stored in Luoyang. It was as if the embezzled land and population did not exist in Sizhou at all.
This is very intriguing, especially Chen Zhi said that there was no sign of the household registration being destroyed. If it were not for the fact that these aristocratic families were all-powerful, it meant that there was something else going on.
"Your Highness, there may be something hidden in this matter. The government affairs in Guandong are so complicated that it is difficult to sort it out in a short time." Chen Zhi finally concluded helplessly.
"Especially, Sizhou was originally a mess, and many officials had connections with local tyrants."
"Although they dare not sing against us, they also concealed many things from each other..."
After all, this is Luoyang, where the major Guandong super clans have been cultivating for many years since the founding of Cao Wei. Although the Han Dynasty has tens of thousands of troops to deter, and there are officials from Guanxi to handle government affairs, but this is Luoyang!
"This... Xiangfu, what do you think?"
"It's okay, the Military Council can be responsible for investigating this matter temporarily, and Fengzong just needs to cooperate." Ma Su understood Chen Zhi's dilemma very well. He had seen this situation in Longxi.
At the beginning, dealing with a few local snakes almost killed him, not to mention in Luoyang.
So, Ma Su began to entrust the Military Council to intervene in this matter and find out what went wrong. After all, there were really soldiers under him whose families were bullied, and it couldn't be made up.
Soon, the Military Council also gave an answer. It was normal that Chen Zhi could not find the household registration, because the land and population that were embezzled came from a very familiar group.
Tuntian households!
As mentioned before, the Tuntian system of Cao Wei was established in the Cao Cao era. At that time, in order to improve the efficiency of Tuntian, the population and land of Tuntian were all recorded separately, and the officials in charge of Tuntian were also additionally established, without going through the formal official channels.
So the person in charge of this matter is generally the Grand Minister of Agriculture, and the person in charge of recording the population and fields of Tuntian is the Diannong School Lieutenant.
They have no relationship with the governors of the states and prefectures, so naturally there is no way to obtain the files from Luoyang. And the files in the hands of the Diannong School Lieutenant have basically been transported to Yecheng...
In other words, Ji Han is actually completely in the dark about how many fields and Tuntian households there are in Luoyang.
The local nobles obviously knew about this a long time ago, so they took advantage of this time to start unscrupulously embezzling land and population. Anyway, these Tuntian households can only be regarded as black households without records, and the Han Dynasty does not know which ones he embezzled without evidence.
In fact, the aristocratic families began to embezzle Tuntianzhuang in the early years of Cao Rui. Because the organization of Tuntianzhuang was not interoperable with the officialdom, it was difficult for the government to stop it.
It was just that after the Han Dynasty recovered Luoyang, they accelerated the pace of embezzlement...
"Rampant! It's really too rampant!" Liu Xuan couldn't help it and slammed the table.
"Father! These Guandong families are too rampant! They really don't take the Han Dynasty seriously!"
"They are doing this, naturally they are confident..." Ma Su frowned, this matter is indeed very tricky.
With his many years of experience in attacking the big families, he naturally knew that data is the top priority. If you don't have a clear understanding of the local household registration and land deed population, it will be difficult to maintain tax collection.
And these Luoyang big families are so rampant, naturally they are sure that you can't figure out which territories belonged to Tuntianzhuang before and which populations are Tuntian households. In this way, even if Ma Su forcibly stopped some of them, they could still eat up a lot of the fields in the chaos.
However, Ma Su also had a very complete set of countermeasures for this. After pondering for a while, Ma Su made a decision,
"First, call Sima Wang over and ask the prominent families in Henei if they know about this."
"What if they don't know, or they are in the same boat with the big families in Luoyang?" Liu Xuan asked subconsciously.
"If that's the case..." Ma Su snorted coldly and said slowly,
"Then we don't mind launching a large-scale land survey in Luoyang. After all, I really don't know which places belong to Tuntianzhuang...but I know those that don't belong to Tuntianzhuang!"
"If you can't find out, then we will survey the land and divide all the unrecorded cultivated land according to the equal-field system!"
"If anyone is dissatisfied, you can come to the General's Mansion to find me!"
If you are not afraid of being hacked to death...
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Obviously, Ma Su does not intend to give in to this group of Guandong nobles.
I did not give in to the powerful when I was in Longyou. Now I am in an advantageous position, can I still indulge you?
The main reason is that surveying the land is time-consuming and laborious, and it may slow down the progress of the Eastern Expedition, so Ma Su does not want to use this method at the first time. However, if the nobles in Luoyang refuse to give up enough benefits, Ma Su can only resort to this last resort.
Soon, Sima Wang called Luoyang and asked the nobles in Henei what they thought.
Several families there quickly gave answers. They had records of this, but they might not be so complete.
Afterwards, the Sima family took the lead and gave Ma Su a general range and population of each garrison in the Luoyang Basin.
According to the information provided by the Sima family, there are more than 100,000 farmers in the Luoyang Basin, most of whom are military farmers. Moreover, they are mostly distributed in the southern part of the basin, occupying more than hundreds of thousands of acres of arable land.
This is a big piece of fat meat, no wonder the Sizhou gentry wanted to snatch it from the tiger's mouth.