No war in the Northern Song Dynasty

Chapter 34 Public Rental Housing in the Song Dynasty

Compared with the emperor's family in the palace who had few offspring, Lu Yijian, the prime minister of the time, could be said to have many children and was blessed with great fortune.

He currently has five sons. Among them, the eldest son Lu Gongchuo and the second son Lu Gongbi have both become officials through imperial favor. The third son Lu Gongzhu is considered to have academic talent, but was later involved in the Feng Shiyuan case. Lu Yijian wanted his son to study hard, so he sent him back to his hometown.

In addition, there are the fourth son Lu Gongru and the fifth son Lu Gongyu, and these two sons are still studying.

The eldest son, Lu Gongchuo, has a more stable character. He is currently serving as the school manager of Jixian Academy, a position that is only held by the emperor's close relatives, so he moved out of the palace to live separately.

So the one serving my father in the mansion now is the second yamen official Lu Gongbi.

Feng Shiyuan was born a minor official. Although he has now become the head of a shop and a house, he dare not put on airs in front of Lu Gongbi, the prime minister's official.

He walked into the house, bowed deeply, and knelt on the ground with his whole body prostrated.

Lu Gongbi laughed contemptuously, but still pretended to let Feng Shiyuan stand up without any formalities.

But Lu Gongbi did not let Feng Shiyuan sit down, but asked him to stand and asked:

"How much rent has been collected this month from the 3,000 rooms in the store and house service?"

Feng Shiyuan immediately said:
"We have already collected 30% of it."

Lu Gongbi frowned and said:
"Why is it only 30%?"

The Dianzhaiwu was a special department established by the Song Dynasty court, responsible for the leasing of public housing in the city of Bianjing. Simply put, it was a government agency responsible for leasing public housing, and was under the management of the Taifu Temple.

The Song Dynasty government was one of the few that was keen on making money. Starting from Emperor Zhenzong of Song, a large number of government agencies were established specifically to manage official industries.

Most of the state-owned industries were under the jurisdiction of Taifu Temple.

The judge of Taifu Temple, also known as "Dazhisu", although he could not formulate fiscal policies like the Three Departments, but he also had great economic voice, quite similar to the status of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission in later generations, and was also an important position sought by officials in Beijing.

Lu Gongbi is now working in Taifu Temple.

The Dianzhaiwu Department managed the leasing of government land and public housing. A statistics was conducted in the third year of Tiansheng, and it was found that the Dianzhaiwu Department owned 26100 public housing units. These public housing leasing businesses could provide a large amount of income to the Taifu Temple every month.

However, problems have arisen since the implementation of this system during the reign of Emperor Zhenzong.

The biggest problem is that the public rent for public housing cannot be collected.

Although all Chinese people want to buy a house and start a business, if they can rent it for a long time, it is no different from buying it.

Those who can afford to rent a store or house for a long term are often not ordinary people. Many of them are officials in Beijing or children of powerful families.

Some properties had even been rented out during the reign of Emperor Zhenzong, and even the tenants had died, but their descendants still occupied the properties.

Among them, there are quite a few who have defaulted on their property payments.

Therefore, although the public rental housing controlled by the Store and House Affairs Bureau has almost doubled compared to the Zhenzong period, and the land price in Bianjing City has increased by 50% compared to the Zhenzong period, the income of the Store and House Affairs Bureau has even decreased compared to the Zhenzong period.

This naturally caused dissatisfaction in the court, and the Taifu Temple was often implicated by the censors for this matter.

After Lu Gongbi took office in the Taifu Temple, he proposed to his superior, the temple judge Zhang Fangping, that the properties that had been in arrears for many years in the store and house affairs be handed over to private individuals for operation. The private individuals only needed to pay rent to the store and house affairs according to the rental price. This would solve the problem of insufficient income from the store and house affairs and allow the private individuals to profit.

Although Zhang Fangping was not a member of Lu Yijian's party, he had a good personal relationship with Lu Yijian and agreed with Lu Gongbi's opinion.

The Store and House Affairs Bureau allocated 3,000 properties that had been in arrears for many years. The second landlord who contracted these public rental houses was naturally Feng Shiyuan, the head of the Store and House Guild.

Hearing Feng Shiyuan say that only 30% of the rent had been collected this month, Lü Gongbi showed an unhappy expression. Even if these houses could not collect a penny of rent, they still had to pay rent to the store and house affairs department. And Feng Shiyuan, the head of the store and house affairs guild, was actually the white glove of the powerful children of Bianjing, including Lü Gongbi, and the majority of the profits had to be handed over to them.

I only heard Feng Shiyuan say:

"Second yamenei, it's 30% of what's owed."

Hearing this, Lü Gongbi was so happy that he almost stood up. He said with great joy:
"Give me a seat!"

As mentioned earlier, many of these properties had long-standing debts, and the store and property management company also transferred the IOUs to Feng Shiyuan.

Thirty percent of the debt is a considerable amount. I don’t know what means Feng Shiyuan used to collect thirty percent of the money!

But think about it, it's nothing more than coercion and intimidation, but as long as it doesn't dirty his hands as an official in the prime minister's office, Lu Gongbi doesn't bother to care.

"Let's not divide this money for now. Buy some more properties in Bianjing City and rent them out."

Feng Shiyuan nodded in agreement. As the head of a shop and house business, he also had a private business under him, which was responsible for the business of buying, selling and renting real estate.

In fact, these properties are basically the property of powerful families like Lu Gongbi, but it is inconvenient for them to rent out the houses, so they handed them over to Feng Shiyuan for management.

In addition, Feng Shiyuan was also responsible for helping them buy and sell properties and renting them out for profit.

Feng Shiyuan is known as Feng Bancheng, but in fact he only owns a few properties.

After finishing the business, Lü Gongbi took out a note from his sleeve and said:
"The owner of this house is Su Ze. Buy his house and get him out of Bianjing City."

After Lu Gongbi finished speaking, Feng Shiyuan immediately understood what the second yamen official of the prime minister's office meant.

In addition to helping the Second Brother to make money, he also had to help him do some shady things, and he was naturally familiar with such things.

After finishing the conversation, Lu Gongbi had no intention of continuing to chat with Feng Shiyuan, so he asked his servant to send him away.

When Feng Shiyuan walked out of the Prime Minister's Residence, he was met with the envious gazes of the people who were queuing outside the Residence to give him gifts.

But Feng Shiyuan didn't feel happy at all now.

Because of his involvement in political struggles, Feng Shiyuan was exiled to Hainan. At that time, Prime Minister Lu did not plead for him at all.

It was only after Zhang Xiuyuan gave birth to a daughter in the palace and the emperor issued a nationwide amnesty that Feng Shiyuan was able to return to Bianliang.

After experiencing all these things, Feng Shiyuan wanted to live a good life in Bian Jing, but was dragged onto the carriage of the prime minister's residence.

Feng Shiyuan may not want to get involved in this mess again, but it is easy to get on board but difficult to get off.

Sitting in his black carriage, Feng Shiyuan opened the note and said to the driver:
"Go to this address."

Originally, Feng Shiyuan didn't need to take action personally in this kind of situation. He could just mobilize a few thugs under his command to harass the homeowner for a few days and force him to sell the house.

Otherwise, with the rising housing prices and generous rents in Bianjing City every year, why would anyone be willing to sell their property?

This is probably how the large amount of real estate owned by the sons of powerful families such as Lu Gongbi came about.

But this time it was a task assigned by Lu Gongbi himself, so Feng Shiyuan decided to take action himself.

(End of this chapter)