A Good Landlord in the Tang Dynasty: Starting from the Village Chief

Chapter 717 Yushu Town

The Great and Small Wuji Fortresses stand on the slope of the plateau on the south bank of the Hao River.

Li Yi returned to Wuji Fortress.

Everything is still the same as before, yet there's a sense that things have changed and people are no longer the same.

The tofu skin workshop and winery that once stood in Wuji Fort have long since moved out, making the fort even more tranquil and elegant.

The workshop was transformed into a garden and a sports field.

The sweet osmanthus blossoms in the courtyard are fragrant.
The wives and concubines took their children and went back to their rooms to change and rest.

The fortress had servants and maids left behind, and everything was provided.

Brew a pot of tea,

Li Yi received the visits from the elders and dignitaries of the village in the South Hall.

Guo Erlang is now the township head.
Now he's a large landowner with thousands of acres of land, but he still dresses very simply. It's said that this Township Head Guo was originally recommended by the Wannian County Magistrate for the position of County Clerk.

"Ah, I've been living in the countryside for too long. It's so much more comfortable there. Chang'an is too big and has too many rules." Guo Erlang stood up, took the tea Li Yi offered, and said this with a smile.

"Actually, I didn't want to be the township head, but the county magistrate personally made the offer, so I couldn't refuse."

The Guo family were merely landlords; his own Guo family from the plateau were just nouveau riche.
But Guo Erlang's wife was from the Du family of Jingzhao, the cousin of Du Ruhui, the Right Minister of Works and Duke of Cai, and the uncle of Li Yi, the Grand Minister of Works and Prince of Dai.

With such a status, even a fifth-rank magistrate of Wannian County would have to treat him with utmost respect.

“Our Yushu Township has changed a lot in the past few years. Uncle, you’ve worked hard.” Li Yi said with a smile.

"Ah, this is all thanks to you, Prince Dai. I did nothing, I did nothing."

Guo Erlang was a miser. He became the village head because he was interested in the fact that the village head could be exempt from taxes and corvée labor, and would not have to pay rent, taxes, or perform corvée labor.

Dong Xiucai, the headmaster of Wuji Academy, said, "Mayor Guo is governing by doing nothing."

This statement could be considered a compliment, but it also carried a hint of sarcasm. Guo Erlang, the township head, was truly a laissez-faire ruler; the township's development in recent years had mainly relied on the Li family's leadership.

Dong Xiucai also held the position of village assistant, and together with Feng, they contributed a lot to the development and education of the village.

“Governing by doing nothing is very good,” Li Yi praised.

What I fear most is people who know nothing but still mess around, and the more they mess around, the more they disturb and harm the people.

Sometimes, even the most cunning schemes of a bad person can't compare to the quick thinking of a fool.

After dynastic changes and great chaos,
What is needed most is not a major overhaul, but rather a period of rest and recuperation, minimizing disruption to the people so that they can recover better.

Yushu Township is not large.
The Tang Dynasty implemented a grassroots township system of one hundred households per li (里) and five li per xiang (乡).

Yusu Township thus has only 500 households. In the past, villages such as Luojiabao and Guojiazhuang had as few as three households in Sanjia Village and as many as a few dozen households in Fengjiabao, with most having only twenty or thirty households.

There are seven or eight villages in a li (里), and dozens of villages of varying sizes in a township.

But there are only five hundred households.
However, in the capital region, wealthy households had many tenants and servants, and many common people fled and hid under the control of these wealthy households.

In recent years, the Li family has grown into a towering tree with many people under its wing. The Li family not only owns a large number of slaves, but also takes in many tenant farmers.

Many of them were migrants who depended on the Li family, essentially as clients, and had no registered residence.

They weren't considered subjects of the Tang Dynasty; they didn't pay taxes or perform corvée labor. However, the Li family was kind and generous, and through renting land and working, their lives were actually better than those of the registered citizens they had before.

At least when trouble arose, borrowing money or grain from the Li family was a very reasonable investment. The Li family had even previously sold land to tenants and laborers.

You can pay in installments if you don't have the money.

Many tenant farmers bought 20 to 30 mu of land in installments, which ensured they had enough food. After all, since it was their own land, they didn't have to pay rent.

Renting out more land would significantly increase income, and cooperating with the Li family on pig and cattle farming would further boost earnings. Cooperative cattle farming would not only provide additional income but also provide cattle for use during busy farming seasons.

“Our Yushu Township has only 500 registered households, but now there are many people living in the township without household registration, which is more than ten times the number of registered households.”

Li Yi was somewhat surprised. "Ten times that of the main household?"

Yushu Township has 500 households; ten times that, that's 5,000 households.

Now, in the post-war period, the Kanto region, once a prosperous area in the Central Plains, may not even have 5,000 households in some counties.

“There are so many workshops,” said Dong Xiucai. “And this commercial street stretches for miles, with countless shops and workshops.”

This place is home to the now world-famous persimmon liquor brewery, as well as numerous other liquor breweries producing corn liquor, sweet potato liquor, sorghum liquor, pear liquor, and wine.
These are all Li family properties, and they are all very large in scale. Because of the good pay, they have attracted a large number of people to work here.

Ordinary people can do the math too.

The capital region was already small and densely populated, and the land annexation by princes, nobles and powerful families was severe. Each household could only be allocated thirty or forty acres of land, and they had to grow mulberry, hemp and wheat, pay rent, taxes and perform corvée labor. After a year of hard work, the people often struggled to even have enough to eat.

As a result, many people were willing to come and work for the Li family.
Some are teenagers who are the second or youngest children in their families and run away to work and earn money. Others are young couples who have little land and simply abandon their registered residence and move here with their whole family. They work in workshops and their income is much better than before.

When even basic needs like food and clothing cannot be met...
Then all you think about is filling your stomach.

No one cared whether they were law-abiding citizens, customers, or lowly servants. Besides, they weren't considered servants or lowly servants by the Li family; they were just tenants or hired laborers. The Li family didn't impose any restrictions on them.

Osukaku Village
It should now be called Yushu Town, as it already feels like a place where capitalism is beginning to emerge.

Not only were many of their wineries famous throughout Chang'an,

Relying on Wuji Medical College, Wuji Medical Clinic, Qianjin Pharmacy, and other institutions, there is now a growing medicinal herb processing industry here, and Wuji Street has become a significant distribution center for medicinal herbs.

The bamboo paper from Nanshan here is also very famous.
Although the papermaking workshops were mainly located in Nanshan Sizhuyuan and the Hanshui area south of the Qinling Mountains, Nanshan bamboo paper was transported from the Qinling Mountains and its first stop was here for sale and further processing.

Besides brewing, pharmaceuticals, and papermaking,

Yushu Town also has grain processing facilities, Li Yi's coin minting furnace, gold and silver processing facilities, money shops, and pawnshops.
And the cotton textile industry, etc.

In addition, there were other businesses operated by other merchants here.
There are indeed many shops and workshops gathered here now.
With Li Yi as a powerful figure, no officials or local tyrants would dare to cause trouble here, and there wouldn't be any endless stream of messy levies.

No one would dare to take bribes or demand favors.

No one dared to come and collect protection money.
This is a free, safe, and stable market. Although there are certain fees, everything is fair, reasonable, and transparent. Doing business here means you're protected by the Li family. If you need to make money or borrow, you can borrow from the Li family at low interest rates.

If you were to become a partner in the upstream or downstream supply chain, that would be even better.

These days, merchants are considered lowly; they are like pigs, arbitrarily oppressed and exploited by the powerful and wealthy, fattened up and then slaughtered.

But the Li family is different from other families.

As long as you follow the rules, don't cheat on weights and measures, don't engage in forced sales or market manipulation, and operate with integrity, you are welcome here, and we can even provide protection and assistance.

In just five or six years, Yushu Street has transformed from a small stall at a bridgehead into a market street stretching five or six miles, lined with shops and workshops on both sides.
Every day, countless villagers come here to sell their own agricultural products and handicrafts.

originally,

The imperial court had regulations,
Markets could only be built in specially designated neighborhoods within state or county towns.
Rural markets, known as "grass markets," would be visited periodically by local officials from the prefecture and county governments once they reached a certain size.

The scale of the market in Yushu Town has long exceeded that of a typical market; it is already a permanent market.

But with the Li family around...
The Wannian County government didn't dare to interfere, but instead sent two city officials to be stationed there.

When the two market officials arrived, they behaved themselves and dared not reach out for personal gain.

After all, Li Yi was the prime minister and also the governor of Yongzhou, making him the superior of their superior, the magistrate of Wannian County.

While drinking tea,
They chatted about the current situation in the village.

The local gentry and elders all had smiles on their faces.

To be honest, the Li family, this towering tree, did not plunder them as it grew; on the contrary, it protected them and allowed them to enjoy many benefits.

The Li family owns numerous businesses and upstream and downstream supply chains. Being in close proximity to these businesses, they can easily make a lot of money even by taking on small projects.

Moreover, with the Li family involved,
The village is peaceful and stable, free from all sorts of shady exploitation and levies. Those cunning and greedy clerks now deliberately ignore Yushu Village.

Even if they went to the Wannian County government office in Chang'an, as long as they said they came from Yusu Township, the clerks would treat them to tea with great courtesy.

Take this commercial street, which is five or six miles long, for example.

It consisted of two rows of shops built along both sides of the official road, with a shop in the front and a workshop in the back, along with a residence, making it very convenient for merchants to operate their businesses here.

This shop stretches for several miles,
The Li family built the most, accounting for half of the total. The rest were built by the local landlords and wealthy families, and the remaining part was built by the villagers of Luojiabao, Fengjiabao, Gaojiabao, Guojiazhuang, Nianzhuang and other villages.

Seeing the market becoming more and more prosperous, everyone borrowed money from the Li family to build one, thinking that once it was built, they could sit back and collect rent, or run it themselves and it would be quite good.

Many landlords and villagers have become landlords, enjoying guaranteed income regardless of drought or flood.

Such a bustling commercial street, with such a large flow of people.

Even setting up a simple stall selling tofu pudding at the entrance of Wuji Academy is better than farming.

Dong Qilang, a former teacher at Wuji Elementary School, passed the imperial examination and became an official, now serving as a county magistrate. He was appointed as a county lieutenant by the Ministry of Personnel, but after taking office, he cracked down on bandits and thieves, accomplishing several major feats. He performed exceptionally well in the evaluation and was promoted to county magistrate ahead of schedule.

Old Dong seemed quite pleased when he spoke of it.

Guo Erlang's eldest son previously followed Li Yi on his campaign and is now a brigade commander in the General of the Cavalry in Daibei.

Dong Qilang, the county magistrate of Zhongxian, held a rank of ninth grade, while Guo Dalang, the brigade commander, held a rank of eighth grade.

Guo Er looked smug when he talked about this.
Despite reading so many books and even passing the imperial examinations, one still had to start as a ninth-rank county lieutenant. Even with such great achievements, one was only promoted to a ninth-rank county assistant.

His eldest son has been serving in the army with Li Yi for over a year, and he is now a brigade commander of the eighth rank, which is even higher than Dong Qilang's rank.

Guo Er smiled and said, "My eldest son has already become a military officer in the prefectural army, so my second son can no longer serve in the prefectural army. I had no choice but to give him a job as a money collector in the county government."

He was to collect money for the government office, receiving a principal of 50,000, and had to pay 48,000 in interest annually.

This task is not easy to complete.

However, precisely because of this, if the money collector can successfully complete this task and pay the interest on time and in full, he will be promoted after one year.

It means transitioning from an unofficial to a formally established position.
Going further up, there's a chance to gain entry from outside the system.

The "money-lending clerk" was responsible for lending public funds to the government offices. Essentially, this was a response to the current financial shortage, where the government offices were left to manage their own finances.

In order to generate revenue for their own public funds, various government offices recruited officials and sons of wealthy families to serve as money collectors, which not only exempted them from corvée labor but also gave them the opportunity to enter officialdom.

To put it bluntly, this is equivalent to buying an official position with money.

Some wealthy families directly paid the interest of 48,000 coins a year to buy their sons a chance to become officials.

That's what Guo Er was thinking. His eldest son became a military officer, but his second son didn't have the chance to join the army. So he planned to find him a job as a money collector. He would pay the interest on the tens of thousands of coins, and once he had worked for a year, he could be considered for an official position.

Nowadays, a bushel of rice costs only two hundred coins.

The interest on those 48,000 coins was actually quite painful for Guo Er, as it could buy 240 shi of rice, equivalent to the harvest of more than 200 mu of land on the plateau.

Of course, he could use this 50,000 yuan as capital for lending, but now that the Li family offers low interest rates, he can't lend it out at an 8% monthly interest rate in the village. In fact, he would have to pay a few percent interest himself.

Compared to the sons of Guo Erlang and Dong Xiucai who became officials, most of the villagers did not have such abilities. Some of their families were already very satisfied with their sons being selected as soldiers.

Because of Li Yi, the proportion of soldiers selected from Yushu Township in recent years has been very high.

"Six years ago, when you came back, there were only seventeen households left in Luo Family Fort. Now there are thirty-six households in Luo Family Fort. More than half of them are officials, and the rest are basically soldiers in the local government."

Li Yi, the four Qiang generals, Xiao Shiyi, Liu Heizi, Luo Dafu, and others are all officials now. Li Yi, of course, holds a first-rank official position, Li Cunxiao is now a prefect, and the other three former Qiang slaves have all risen to the rank of General of the Cavalry.

Xiao Shiyi was a fifth-rank prefectural magistrate.

Liu Heizi was also a General of the Cavalry. Da Fu and several others who went out with Li Yi at the earliest time were basically generals of the chariots and cavalry, and a few others were captains.

The thirty-six households in Luojiabao are now almost all military households.

Speaking of which, I wonder how many people would envy her.

(End of this chapter)