The Qing Dynasty is about to end

Chapter 150 Zeng Guofan, your house has been raided!

Hunan, Changsha Prefecture, Xiangxiang County, Heyetang Baiyangping.

A red flag embroidered with the four black characters "Taiping Heavenly Kingdom" was flying over the Zeng family's old house, symbolizing the brutal rule of the feudal landlord class in the Heyetang area!
Zeng Guofan’s old nest has been occupied by the Taiping Army!
Xiao Chaogui, the Western King of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, was sitting in the courtyard where Zeng Guofan once sat, looking gloomily at several members of the Zeng family who were kneeling in front of him.

These members of the Zeng family should be closely related to Zeng Guofan. They all have triangular eyes, drooping eyebrows, and high cheekbones, and they don't look like good people.

Xiao Chaogui held a portrait sketched with a ballpoint pen in his hand, comparing it with the other two, looking at the painting and then at the person. He really couldn't tell the two apart!

This portrait, drawn with a ballpoint pen, was drawn by Luo Yaoguo from memory. This angel obviously has not learned the "magic" of painting. Although he has the same characteristics as Zeng Guofan, Zeng Guofan is not the only one with such features. It is really hard to tell who is who.

After Xiao Chaogui led his troops to attack Baiyangping in Heyetang, he immediately ordered his brigade lecturers Ma Baocai and Chen Ji to take the soldiers "directly under the lecturers" to arrest the landlords with "triangular eyes", "hanging eyebrows" and "high cheekbones". After a while, seven or eight people who looked like this were captured. The oldest looked to be in his seventies or eighties, and the youngest was only thirteen or fourteen years old - this couldn't be Zeng Guofan!
The remaining few looked strange, either because of their age or because of too many calluses on their hands and too dark skin. They looked like small landlords whose families were not well-off and who often had to do farm work themselves.

Xiao Chaogui looked around for a while, then looked at Ma Baocai and Chen Ji, two of Luo Yaoguo's twelve disciples, and asked, "Baocai, Aji, have you tried them?"

"We have tried it!" Ma Baocai was short, thin, and dark-skinned, and looked bitter and resentful. When he heard Xiao Chaogui's question, he immediately said with a look of resentment, "None of them are good people. They are all evil people who collect iron plate rents, lend debts to the King of Hell, and use Zeng Guofan's name to oppress small farmers!"

Xiao Chaogui frowned, "I didn't ask you these questions. I asked if there was Zeng Guofan among them?"

"No." Chen Ji, who was one of the Twelve Disciples like Ma Baocai, took over the question and shook his head. "But they all have the surname Zeng, and are from the Guo generation. They are close relatives of Zeng Guofan, and they are all rich and unkind landlords. They are much worse than Mr. Huang of Etang!"

Chen Ji was a short, stocky man with yellow skin, small eyes, a flat nose and a simple and honest face. His family was a tenant of the Huang family, and they had not yet gone bankrupt. When Luo Yaoguo attacked Etang, he was "begging part-time". He probably felt that being a tenant of the Huang family was a dead end and he would have to beg full-time sooner or later, so he made up his mind to join the Taiping Army.

However, he traveled to many places during these days and started a "land distribution" campaign in several counties - that is, he took the land distribution team to a certain county, found a few villages with more acute conflicts and more dangerous terrain, and villages that had the potential to develop into the center of the base area, and began to "ignite the land distribution" and develop backbones.

After some time, he found that Mr. Huang Shijie seemed to be the kindest among all the local tyrants and evil gentry. Compared with other masters, he was still a good master!

The Zeng family of Baiyangping in Heyetang is just like those bad masters. They charge high rent and interest, and are cruel. They have no sympathy for the poor farmers under them, and do not look like the family of a minister at all.

Xiao Chaogui stroked his beard, pointed at a man in his thirties or forties who looked the worst in the Zeng family, and asked, "You, what's your name?"

The middle-aged man in his thirties or forties replied, "Your Majesty, my name is Zeng Guoshu, and I am the cousin of Minister Zeng."

Ma Baocai said, "Among Zeng Guofan's cousins, he is the worst! He has always helped Zeng Guofan's family to oppress the poor peasants. He is vicious and mean, and the people hate him deeply!"

Xiao Chaogui snorted coldly and said, "Zeng Guofan is a minister, he shouldn't be like this, it must be you, a villain, who is using his name to do evil!" Zeng Guoshu knew that things were going to get bad when he heard what Xiao Chaogui said, and he kowtowed quickly and said, "Your Majesty, you misunderstood. Please listen to my explanation. I never used Minister Zeng's name to do evil, but Minister Zeng. Minister Zeng's family is like this!"

Xiao Chaogui raised his eyes and said, "Really? He is already a minister, does he still need to skin his fellow villagers?"

"Your Majesty, you don't know," Zeng Guoshu said tremblingly, lying on the ground with his forehead pressed against the ground, "Since Minister Zeng entered the officialdom, he has been working in the low-income government offices in Beijing. Although he has been a minister for only eight years, he has really nowhere to make money! The lives of officials in Beijing are poor, prices in the capital are high, and they have to rent houses to live in, so they don't have any savings at all. His brother Zeng Guohua campaigned to study at the Imperial College two years ago, and it cost a lot. Later, he bought the position of Tongzhi of Yong'an Prefecture, hoping to make a fortune, but his mother passed away right after he took office, so he had to go home to mourn.

Zeng Guofan's official position was just a sham, with no benefits, so his father had to exploit tenants in his hometown to make up for the loss."

It turned out that Zeng Guofan was also an "official in vain". Although he did not owe a lot of debts in Beijing, his life was not much better. Naturally, his fellow villagers could not benefit from him at all, and they had to help him fill the holes in the officialdom.

Now his house has been taken over by Xiao Chaogui. With the hole in the officialdom and the expenses during the period of mourning, he is really going to die of filial piety!
Xiao Chaogui snorted, "You are not a good person either. You helped Zeng Guofan's family to lend money and collect rent. I guess you made a lot of money!"

"Please spare my life, my lord." Zeng Guoshu knew that things were going to get bad, so he kowtowed and begged for mercy.

Xiao Chaogui looked back at Ma Baocai and Chen Ji, "How is it?"

Ma Baocai had a face full of hatred for evil, and snorted coldly, "No mercy!" He gritted his teeth and said, "Your Highness the King of the West, if we fall into the hands of this thief, how can you forgive us?"

Chen Ji said: "King Xi, this place is about 60 to 70 miles away from Xiangxiang County. It is surrounded by hills and is at the junction of Changsha and Hengzhou. More than 50 miles to the southeast is Nanyue Hengshan. It is a poor and remote place with a large population and little land. It can be used as a base!"

"Well, since we're here, we can't come here for nothing!" Xiao Chaogui nodded, "Then I'll leave it to you two. Let's take the lotus pond as the center and develop it properly!"

"Yes!"

In Baiyangping, in front of the Zeng family's old house, nearly a thousand people, including second-rate people from seven or eight surrounding villages and poor farmers from Baiyangping, gathered in front of the only few brick and tile houses in Baiyangping - these brick and tile houses were the "Jinshi Houses" and "Shilang Houses"!

The eldest son of this family, Zeng Guofan, was a high-ranking official in the imperial court. I don’t know how much money he embezzled, otherwise how could he have afforded to build such a magnificent tiled house?
The Zeng family, which produced Minister Zeng, is a prominent family in Heyetang. Most of the land in Heyetang belongs to the Zeng family!
In recent years, because the Zeng family had produced a minister, the landlords of the Zeng family oppressed the tenants even more harshly! And the magistrate of Xiangxiang County, Zhu, was a donation class. As soon as he took office, he asked for donations for militia training in order to prevent thieves and suppress bandits. He wanted to set up three battalions of 1,500 militias. 1,500! A deputy general only had this many assistants, and there were so many militias in a county. How much would it cost?

And this burden ultimately fell on the poor farmers in Xiangxiang County!
Now is the autumn harvest season, and it is also the season to pay rent, interest, autumn taxes, levies, and militia donations. There is little flat land in Heyetang, but a lot of sloping land, so not much food can be grown. After paying this and that, there is not even enough dried sweet potatoes to eat, so I have to borrow money again, and I am getting deeper and deeper into trouble!

Therefore, the poor farmers in Heyetang have been looking forward to the Taiping Army for a long time!

I heard that farmers south of the Xiangjiang River are no longer suffering as they have no debts, have divided up the land, no longer have to pay rent, and there are no longer so many exorbitant taxes. There is only one tax on land, and it is a fixed "iron plate tax", which is equivalent to about 15% of the harvest. They don't need to pay silver, but can pay the tax directly. They don't need to send it to the county town themselves, they can pay it in the town. It is very convenient. The poor farmers there must be so happy!
Thinking of the good life of the poor farmers in the south, the people in front of the Zeng family's old house cast their eager eyes on the brick and tile houses that seemed extremely "luxurious" to them.
(End of this chapter)