Chapter 341 Things Got Out of Hand

Several of the largest landlords in Suzhou were planning a riot at first, but Zhao Jun was cracking down on gangsters and evil, so they were forced to stop.

But after a year, they finally decided to stir up a huge wave again.

The reason was that their power was not strong at the time. They could not stir up any waves just relying on the landlords in Suzhou. In addition, the government was arresting people everywhere, so they did not dare to act rashly.

However, after a year of observation, many people found that the government was really cracking down on gangsters and evil. As long as a society is established, it will be arrested if it is rampant in the city and bullies good people everywhere.

Although there are also rural bandits and road bullies in the countryside, such as many villages have village bullies and rural bullies, but there are relatively few in most southern villages.

The reason is that the clan concept in the south is relatively strong. There are clan leaders and elders who are highly respected above, and even if there are domineering people below, they often dare not bully people with the same surname, village and hometown.

As for the behavior of people like clan leaders and elders bullying their own people in the village, it is true that there are not many cases, because the southern clans often pay attention to passing down the family tradition of poetry and etiquette, and clan leaders and elders must pay attention to fairness and justice to maintain their prestige, otherwise the clansmen below will not obey him.

So even if there are some actions, they must deal with them in a relatively fair way. At most, they will do some small actions behind the scenes, and openly oppress, rob, beat without reason, violent coercion and other evil behaviors will not happen.

Therefore, under such order, there are not many evil forces in the southern villages. Or to say, there are, but due to the clan concept and the protection of the same clan, there will not be many people reporting.

The so-called "officials will not investigate if the people do not report", no matter when. Even if these landlords have some thugs in their homes, they usually disguise themselves as slaves. The villagers naturally keep silent because of their wealth and power.

And those landlords who were arrested by the court were basically punished together because they took in desperate people. Most landlords were safe and sound and did not suffer in this storm.

This also gave those landlords courage.

Suzhou is a land of fish and rice, and the place with the most abundant grain production in the Song Dynasty. The local landlords suffered the greatest loss of interests.

The landlords headed by the four major families, such as Gong Xu, felt that since the court was still fair and impartial and did not implicate them, it meant that they could also reasonably pursue their own demands.

And before, their power was too small.

But now, after a year of fermentation, the land tax has swept the entire Song Dynasty, seriously damaging the interests of the entire Jiangsu and Zhejiang landlords.

In this case, as long as someone raised his arm, I believe that many landlords would choose to stand with them.

So Gong Xu and other landlords first discussed with other big landlords in Suzhou, then expanded their network, and contacted landlords in Huzhou, Changzhou, Xiuzhou, Hangzhou, Runzhou, Jiangning Prefecture and other places.

By March, many landlords responded, and they agreed to take their men and horses to the Hangzhou Transport Envoy's Office to protest.

In early March, the sky was clear and the air was clear.

After a month of preparation, many landlords took action.

The landlords in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, led by Gong Xu, decided to use courtesy before force. They jointly petitioned the Transport Commissioner's Office to cancel the land tax system.

There were more than 300 large landlords with tens of thousands of acres of land, and the rest of the small and medium-sized landlords with thousands to thousands of acres, totaling more than 2,000 people, forming a huge force.

You should know that the total area of ​​Liangzhe Road was only 70 million acres, of which Suzhou, Huzhou, Changzhou, Xiuzhou, Hangzhou, Runzhou, Jiangning Prefecture and other places added up to more than 40 million acres.

The remaining 14 states such as Taizhou, Wenzhou, Muzhou, and Quzhou had more mountainous areas and fewer acres of land, so the total area was only more than 20 million acres.

The total land of the landlords who made trouble this time may have reached more than 10 million acres.

If calculated according to the 28-point division of land mergers, the landlords of Jiangsu and Zhejiang Road, ranging from hundreds of acres to tens of thousands of acres, owned almost 30 million acres of land. The landlords who responded this time basically accounted for one-third of the landlords in the entire Jiangsu and Zhejiang Road.

Two or three thousand of them signed their names densely, all of them were very influential landlords from all over the country. Small landlords with only a few hundred acres were not even qualified to sign on it.

After receiving this petition, Du Qi, the transport commissioner of Jiangsu and Zhejiang Road, originally wanted to invite the leading landlords to have a good talk.

But when he thought that he was a transport commissioner and a frontier official, he had talked to those people several times, but they turned a deaf ear to him, which really made him lose face, so he ignored it and just sent someone to convey that the land tax was the national policy of the court and could not be shaken, so that they could do it themselves.

When the news came back, the landlords of Jiangsu and Zhejiang Road were very angry. They felt that the court was too arrogant. It had damaged their interests so much, but it had always ignored it and took various measures to take away their tenants.

This was intolerable.

So starting from March 10th, a large number of landlords brought their people and rushed to Hangzhou City in a mighty manner.

They shouted and petitioned outside the offices of the Transportation Department, the Pacification Department, the Promotion Department, the Grain and Oil Department, and the Censorate. By March 15, more and more people had come to Hangzhou, and there were tens of thousands of them.

On the morning of the 16th, the protest team entered the city from the Yuhang Gate in the north, and then people from all the streets poured in like a tide, blocking the entire street.

At the end of the Chen hour, a large number of people ran to Dawazi Street, and the traffic was temporarily blocked. Except for the boats running smoothly at the water gates, the streets in other places were already crowded and people could hardly pass through.

"The land tax is harmful to the country and the people. This evil policy should have been abolished long ago!"

"The court is unjust and has separated my wife and children."

"It was promised that taxes would never be increased, but they imposed taxes on us and took away our land and guests. We are miserable!"

All kinds of slogans were deafening.

Don't think that there were no demonstrations in ancient times. In fact, there were quite a lot of demonstrations in the Northern Song Dynasty.

For example, in the third year of Jingyou, the court wanted to lay off more than 500 officials from the three departments. These officials went to the doorsteps of Lu Yijian and Wang Zeng's houses to make trouble, and also went to the doorstep of the censor-in-chief Du Yan's house to curse and throw tiles and stones to protest.

In the second year of Jiayou, Ouyang Xiu dismissed thousands of students because of the Taixue system, which led to thousands of people gathering to march and protest in Bianliang, besieging Ouyang Xiu's residence and his official sedan chair.

In the first year of Jingkang, the Jin army besieged the city, and tens of thousands of people in Bianliang marched and protested, forcing Song Qinzong to use Li Gang, the prime minister of the pro-war faction. In the process, more than 200 eunuchs were even beaten to death, and the whole Bianliang was in chaos.

Therefore, since ancient times, marches and demonstrations have not been rare. Even when Yongzheng of the Qing Dynasty implemented the land tax, a large number of landlords went to the Zhejiang government to find Li Wei to protest.

At this time, because the court did not deal with the landlords' protests in the first time, after a year of fermentation, the matter became more and more serious. Thousands of landlords had already brought their slaves into Hangzhou City, causing the traffic in and outside Hangzhou City to be almost paralyzed.

This is still good.

During the Republic of China, the strike of dung pickers in Shanghai and Guangzhou was really terrible. The whole city was filthy and the fragrance spread ten miles.

The office of the Transport Commissioner of Liangzhe Road is located in the government office inside Fengyu Gate, near the West Lake.

The parade street on the east side of the West Lake has white walls and gray tiles, willows swaying, painted boats on the lake, and brothels on the lakeside. It is the time for tourists to enjoy the beautiful scenery.

As a result, a large number of protesters poured in, and the east bank of the West Lake was suddenly crowded with people. There was even a stampede and the riots continued.

There were countless people outside the office of the Transport Commissioner, shouting and demanding that the court stop the policy of allocating land tax.

"Bang!"

At this moment, in the office, Du Qi, the Transport Commissioner of Liangzhe Road, heard the news and was furious. He slammed the table and said, "What? Say it again."

The clerk below hurriedly said, "General, at least tens of thousands of people have come to the city, blocking the streets, shouting everywhere, so that the downtown area has stopped, and the people have gone home to avoid it. Those who don't hesitate have been trampled and injured."

"This bunch of bastards."

Du Qi stood up from the table, put his hands behind his back, and immediately thought about it.

It has been making trouble recently, but he didn't care.

This is the intention of the court. According to the words of the court, this is also the last chance for these Liangzhe Road landlords.

As long as they are obedient and spend this period peacefully, everything will be fine in the future.

But obviously they don't want this.

They are making things bigger and bigger. There were only one or two thousand people at most before, but now there are tens of thousands of people. What are they trying to do? Are they going to rebel?

Du Qi wanted to send troops to suppress it at that time, but he turned around and thought that he had no military power, so he could only mobilize the government officials.

The number of people in the government officials was a drop in the bucket, and they might not be able to suppress the situation.

He hesitated for a moment and said, "Send someone out to maintain order in the streets first, so that no one will be injured by trampling."

"Yes."

The clerk went out.

Today, Du Qi was working in the government office, and he was originally dealing with other things, so Ren Maocheng, the deputy envoy of transportation, happened to be there.

Hearing Du Qi's words, Ren Maocheng hesitated and said, "General, don't you care about it?"

"How?"

Du Qi spread his hands and said, "If you want to suppress it, you must send troops. Do we have troops on hand?"

"Then"

Ren Maocheng said, "Should we send someone to the capital to report to the prefect immediately?"

"Hmm"

Du Qi narrowed his eyes and thought deeply.

Under normal circumstances, if such a thing happened during his term of office, if it was not suppressed and reported, he would definitely be punished.

In history, the reason why Nong Zhigao repeatedly wrote to the court but no one responded was that the prefect of Yongzhou intercepted the letters.

After all, if the court knew that the Jiaozhi people often raided the border of the Song Dynasty and Yongzhou could not deal with it, then the court would only think that the prefect of Yongzhou was incompetent and affect their careers.

So many times, officials tend to suppress such things with a greater impact and not allow them to spread out to prevent them from being reported to the court.

But now this matter obviously cannot be blamed on Du Qi, because he had wanted to deal with the landlords for a long time, but Zhao Jun gave him a secret order to let the situation develop, which led to the current situation.

Although the prefect did not say why he did this, Du Qi was not stupid and could vaguely guess one or two.

There are only two points.

First, as the prefect said on the surface, giving the landlords a chance, hoping that they will invest their wealth in industries such as steel, cement, and brick factories to contribute to industrial development.

Second...

Du Qi raised his head and looked at Ren Maocheng and said, "Don't rush to report this matter."

"Why?"

Ren Maocheng was stunned and said, "General, the matter is so big, if we don't report it, the other four departments will report it, and there is also the Imperial City Department."

"It's up to them whether they report it or not, anyway, we won't report it."

Du Qi shook his head.

"What if the court blames us?"

Ren Maocheng hesitated.

Du Qi smiled and said: "No, we will not take credit for this."

"Achieving merit? This, this, this."

Ren Maocheng was dumbfounded. Is it still a merit if he didn't report the knowledge?

How is that possible?

However, Du Qi smiled mysteriously and said: "I heard that the imperial court is going to build a railway from Kaifeng to Nanyang this year. Most of the railway line is wasteland, but there are also some farmland. Do you know how the imperial court solved the problem?"

Ren Maocheng thought for a moment and said, "I heard that I bought it."

"Jiangsu and Zhejiang are all land, and transportation basically relies on shipping. How fast is the railway? It is said that it can travel thousands of miles in a day, and can go from Jiangsu and Zhejiang to Sichuan in a few days."

Du Qi said calmly: "But if we ask them to buy land, will they give it to us?"

"What does Si Shuai mean?"

"Actually, the imperial court has long wanted to touch them. First of all, they have a lot of land. The rich have thousands of houses and the poor have no place to stand, which makes the people miserable. Based on the movements of the Imperial Court in recent years, I am afraid that they want to take back the land."

Du Qi said: "You see, in the past few years, the government issued orders asking local governments to find ways to buy back land and use it as official land for the poor to farm. But what about these people on the Liangzhe Road?"

"Oh oh oh oh."

Ren Maocheng suddenly realized, his eyes widened and he said: "So Zhiyuan deliberately let them go, so that he could find an excuse."

"Well, the transfer has made the Yamen very busy with official duties, so we have to continue working."

Du Qi said calmly.

"Yes Yes Yes."

Ren Maocheng laughed.

Anyone who can reach the rank of commander is not a fool.

The policy changes of the imperial court in recent years can actually be seen clearly.

For example, what is the purpose of sharing the land, what is the purpose of redeeming official land, and what is the purpose of reducing corvee taxes.

In the final analysis, it is actually to alleviate the increasingly acute land conflicts and the huge gap between rich and poor.

As early as the Western Han Dynasty, Minister Shi Dan saw the disadvantages of land annexation. All dynasties have been trying to solve this problem, but they have never been able to eradicate it.

Now that the imperial court is going to take serious action, these frontier officials naturally know it very well.

So where do they stand?

Naturally, we have to side with the imperial court.

Because all the officials who did not side with the imperial court had already been beaten down by the Imperial Court.

So how to choose a side? It’s natural to have a clear idea.

It seems.

Zhiyuan is about to wield the butcher's knife again.

Du Qi dipped his brush in ink, thought to himself, and then began to work on official documents.

Soon, the attitude of the transfer envoy to the Yamen was conveyed.

Still indifferent.

This in turn aroused the anger of the people in Hangzhou Prefecture, because it seriously interfered with their daily lives.

Therefore, many people waited for the demonstrators to disperse at night and then ran to the government offices to curse.

Du Qiquan pretended not to hear.

This is also something that can't be helped.

If you want to make things bigger, you must make things bigger so that the court can easily send troops.

So a few days later.

The number of people demonstrating has increased.

At first, everyone showed some restraint, but by March 20, more and more people came to Hangzhou, with nearly 20,000 people coming in to protest.

And on this day, things got really big. Seeing that the government office had been closed due to the changes in the past few days, the people who were originally just protesting actually started throwing stones, bricks and tiles.

Then someone shouted and actually rushed to the government office. Later, they were forced back by people sent by the government with crossbows, and they dispersed in the streets. Unable to vent their anger accumulated over the past few days, they rampaged and smashed everywhere.

For a time, Hangzhou became more chaotic and public security declined rapidly. With the first death, the first shop being smashed, and even someone raising a torch, the nature of the incident suddenly changed.

It was only at this time that the transfer envoy's Yamen finally made some movement. Together with the other four Yamen, the Imperial City Department and the Hangzhou Prefecture, all the Yamen were dispatched to arrest those who smashed, looted, and burned, extinguished the flames, and treated the injured.

A few days later, the transfer agent's letter from the Yamen was conveyed to Bianliang at an extremely fast speed.