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

Chapter 788 Turnaround
Li Yi was the prime minister.

The imperial prime minister was sent on a mission to a local area by imperial decree.

As the acting governor, he directly conducted a public trial and executed Tanman, which earned him the utmost trust from the tenant farmers.

Registering households and distributing land
The scene was once lively but then spiraled out of control, and the Imperial Guards tried their best to maintain order.

“Situ is being too kind to these people, even forgiving all their debts. Isn’t that going too far? Forgiving the usurious portion would be fine, but at least the principal should be recovered,” said an officer of the Imperial Guard.

Li Yi looked at the villagers queuing up to apply.
“Look at them, look at how oppressed and exploited they are, yet they still have a shred of dignity. They live like livestock.”

Now that justice has been delayed, and the light of justice has finally shone down, is there still any need to scheme and plot?
Shouldn't we forgive debts?
Haven't they been oppressed enough by generations of suffering?

The officer chuckled twice. "I misspoke. Those bald monks really deserve to be killed."

"Whether they should be killed or not depends on the law. Regardless of whether they are monks or nuns, since they have violated the law, they should be dealt with according to the law."

Tanman was beheaded immediately because he had committed multiple capital crimes, including murder and rape of many women, which were extremely heinous and warranted execution.

He also committed illegal acts such as assault and usury.

Therefore, he deserved to die.
Li Yi, as the envoy, didn't need to go through layers of reporting and approval, and Tan Man wouldn't be executed in the autumn.

Killing them would be the only way to appease public anger.

Not killing them would be insufficient to maintain the authority of the imperial court.

Zhang Dashan brought his bride, Yu, to thank Li Yi. The newlyweds were so excited that they trembled all over.

The Yu family's estate on the opposite bank of the river was also under the jurisdiction of the temple's estate management office, and her family were all tenant farmers of the temple.

When she turned fifteen, the monk Tanyi, who was in charge of their village, took advantage of her family's inability to pay off their debts and suggested that she work for him for a few days washing clothes and bedding. In reality, he wanted her to try the new melon.

Unable to repay the debt, the Yu family had no choice but to agree.

So Yu was taken to Tan Yi's place and stayed there for a month before being sent back. In return, she only received a reduction in the interest on her debt, an extension of the repayment period, and a better piece of land to rent.

The Yu family had no say in the matter.

The world she knew from childhood seemed to be like this: poor families often struggled to even have enough to eat, and when faced with disease or famine, they had no choice but to sell their property, or even pawn their wives and daughters.

Yu's mother was once forced to be sold to a bachelor in a neighboring village for three years, during which time she gave birth to two children.

When the three years were up, her mother returned home, leaving the two children with the bachelor.

Yu originally had an older sister, who was also forced to sell her during the famine in exchange for some food.

He also had a younger brother who starved to death.

For these tenant farmers, life is about struggling to survive, but it's not easy, so sometimes dignity is no longer important.

In order to get married, her father had to borrow money at high interest rates and also had to agree to let the monk in charge of the village sleep with his wife first.

During the famine, he had no choice but to pawn his wife to a bachelor in the neighboring village. She not only did his laundry and cooked for him, but also bore his children.

It is said that during the most turbulent and famine-stricken years at the end of the Daye era...

Not only were wives and daughters sold, but some people even exchanged their own children to eat.

Everyone goes through this, and it seems like they've gotten used to it. But today, we're showing them that things shouldn't be this way.

Li Yi looked at the newlyweds.

"Congratulations on your marriage! May you grow old together in happiness. Now that you have settled down and received land, I hope you will have plenty of food and clothing and live a happy and healthy life."

"How many people are in your family, and how much land did you get?" Li Yi asked them.

Zhang Dashan is twenty-five this year, considered an old bachelor. He has two brothers, one twenty and the other seventeen, as well as one older sister and two younger sisters.
There were originally several siblings, but they all died young.

The eldest sister and the second sister are both married.

In this family, besides his three brothers and parents, there is also a deaf grandfather. His father is in his forties and his grandfather is in his sixties.

Now he has married a new wife, and the family consists of seven people: five men, one old man, two young men, and two middle school students.

"Oh, then your family will be allocated two hundred mu of land, eighty mu of Yongye mulberry fields and one hundred and twenty mu of allotted land. Not bad. Work hard and the land will not let your sweat go to waste."

Zhang Dashan's family received more than 200 mu of land.

His mother and wife had both been violated by monks, so they each received ten acres of land as compensation. His grandfather was deaf, also because he had been slapped by a monk in the past, and he also received ten acres of land as compensation.

So,
Zhang Dashan's family of seven will receive 110 mu of permanent land and 120 mu of allotted land, for a total of 230 mu of land.

This result was something that the whole family couldn't believe.

"Prime Minister Li, is it really possible for my family to be allocated 230 mu of land?"

"Yes, I, Li Yi, keep my word. We're starting the registration process now, and the land will be allocated after the registration is complete."

Zhang Dashan's family used to rent out a hundred acres of land in the temple, with varying degrees of success.

According to Li Yi's regulations, this hundred mu of land was directly allocated to their names, and an additional one hundred and thirty mu were granted.

"The land has been allocated to you, and you have been registered as citizens. From now on, you will be good citizens of the imperial court and taxpayers of the imperial court."

They were required to pay rent, labor service, and taxes according to the number of males, with each male receiving two shi of millet, two zhang of silk, three liang of cotton, and twenty days of labor service per year.

In addition, two liters of grain from the granary must be paid per mu of land.
This is the responsibility and obligation you, as law-abiding citizens, should bear.

Zhang Dashan readily agreed, "With 230 mu of land, we are willing to pay the rent and perform labor for a year."

I used to farm for the temple.
Sixty percent of the harvest from the land must be used to pay rent.

They have to work thirty or forty days a year for free to cultivate the land belonging to the temple.

Even renting, leasing, and selling wine caused them great suffering, yet they were helpless to change it.

If you own your land, all the harvest is yours. Even if you have to pay rent, it's still a much better deal.

The burden has been greatly reduced. "Can your family cultivate all 230 mu of land?"

"There are seven of us. If we grit our teeth, we can manage to grow it."

Zhang Dashan said he wanted to plant some mulberry trees for silkworm rearing, some hemp for cloth weaving, and also some jujube and elm trees. The remaining land would be used for grain cultivation, with crop rotation and fallow periods to conserve soil fertility and achieve better yields per acre.

He was already planning which plot of land to plant mulberry trees and which to plant hemp, which to plant wheat and which to plant millet and soybeans.

The bride, Madam Yu, asked, "Won't the temple take back the land that the imperial court allocated to us?"

"of course not."

After all the villagers had completed their registration,

Li Yi announced another piece of good news.
"After you are allocated land, you will not have to pay rent and taxes this year, and you will be exempt from paying them next year. You will only have to perform 20 days of labor service each year."

It's already the end of the year, so exemption is the proper thing to do, but if we exempt it again next year, that would be true care.

The villagers were so excited they didn't know how to express it.

Some villagers even knelt down and kowtowed.

In the past, when they encountered difficulties,
They took the sesame oil they were reluctant to use to the temple as an offering, making wishes and praying to the Buddha and Bodhisattvas, but they received no response or protection.

right now,

Prime Minister Li happened to pass by and helped them escape their suffering.

Not knowing how to express their gratitude, they used the same method they used when worshipping Buddha in the temple.

"Everyone, get up."

"The one you should truly be grateful to is the Holy Emperor."

The villagers wanted to treat Li Yi well to express their gratitude. One family contributed a few dried rats, and another contributed a string of dried loaches.

Old Zhang's family at the village entrance brought some sweet potatoes, while Old Wang's family at the village end brought corn.

Someone even brought their own laying hen.

Some people also brought the sesame oil that they had prepared as offerings to the temple.

Seeing their hastily put-together attempt to cook a meal, Li Yi waved his hand and refused.

Those dried-up rats looked horrible.
He waved.
Let Li Enze make the arrangements.

So the accompanying soldiers began to take large pots from the wagons, and set up stoves and pots on the open ground in the village.

Start the fire and cook rice.

They took out some cured meat, smoked chicken, salted fish, and sausages from the car, washed and rinsed them, and started cooking.
Take some more vegetables such as radishes, pumpkins, and cabbages from the car.
He invited the villagers to have dinner with him.

This is much better than using wood to make the eight-course wedding banquet braised fish.

The aroma of the meat filled the air, making the villagers' mouths water.

"Minister Situ, how about I lead a hundred cavalrymen to Mount Song now and take down all those bald monks?" Li Cunyi suggested.

"What's the rush? Are you afraid they'll rebel?" Li Yi said calmly.

The reason why Shaolin dared to rebel against Wang Shichong was because the Tang Dynasty sent troops to attack, and Wang Shichong was too busy to take care of himself, so they took the opportunity to strike.

In chaotic times, many monks dared to rebel.
For example, the monk Tansheng, who proclaimed himself the Emperor of Mahayana Buddhism, appointed the nun Jingxuan as his empress, and established a Buddhist kingdom, was probably the most notorious.

For example, during the Battle of Jiezhou when Liu Wuzhou attacked Tang, the monk Daocheng used a Buddhist banner to lower Liu's army into the city, thus enabling them to break through the Tang army's Jiezhou city defenses from within and without.

The story of the thirteen Shaolin monks who infiltrated Huanzhou City, captured Wang Renzhe, and surrendered the city to Tang is not much different from that of Dao Cheng of Jiezhou.
More often than not, it's speculation driven by self-interest.

Back then, Shaolin Temple couldn't even withstand mountain bandits; it was burned to the ground, and its temple properties and estates were all seized by Wang Renzhe. If it weren't for the Tang army's later attack on Wang Shichong, Shaolin might not have dared to attack Wang Zheng.

But they didn't have the strength to defeat Wang Shichong's Zheng state.

Even if they could win over the deputy general in the city and capture Wang Renzhe alive without the Tang army's attack, they still wouldn't be able to hold the city.

Now, the Tang Dynasty has unified the world.
How dare Shaolin rebel against the imperial court?
Li Yi was actually hoping for such a formidable person, so that he could deal with him without holding back.

Actually last year,
Many of the misdeeds of the Shaolin Temple on Mount Song were exposed to the emperor by the Crown Prince's faction, and the Grand Historian Fu Yi and others fiercely criticized them.

As a result, the emperor issued an edict ordering the demolition of Shaolin Temple and the dismissal of its monks.

At that time, the struggle between the Crown Prince and the Prince of Qin was at its most intense. The Crown Prince's faction attacked Shaolin Temple because Shaolin Temple had been rewarded by Li Shimin, who granted them 40 hectares of permanent land, 30 hectares of allotted land, and allowed them to support 500 monk soldiers.

The Crown Prince then reported the numerous illegal acts committed by Shaolin Temple to the emperor, implicating the Prince of Qin and stating that the Prince of Qin bore inescapable responsibility.

The imperial edict was issued.

Shaolin Temple defied the imperial decree, but Li Shimin was the Grand Chancellor of Shaanxi East Circuit, and Luoyang was Li Shimin's stronghold. The Prince of Qin's faction stepped in to protect Shaolin, but the matter escalated and dragged the Prince of Qin into it.

Ultimately, Prime Minister Xiao Yu and Yang Gongren intervened and helped Shaolin Temple, resulting in the decree being withdrawn.

That time,

The Shaolin Temple was able to pass the test not because they were so great, but because the gods above were fighting, and it wasn't really aimed at them.

And this time,
Li Yi is serious now.

Regardless of whether you were one of the Thirteen Monks who assisted the King of Qin, or whether you received an imperial decree to have ten virtuous monks regularly enshrined in the temple.

This time, a complete overhaul is necessary.

A thorough investigation from head to toe, from the outside in.
Investigate thoroughly.

Li Yi originally intended to leave more of the 200,000 mu of land in the temple to them, but now, this famous temple, which has been built for more than a hundred years, may really be forcibly demolished.

(End of this chapter)