Bachelor

Chapter 252
To Sun Dan's surprise, since Zhou and Hua were intermarried for generations, they could be regarded as relatives.The two villages are only separated by a small river, and they can't see each other when they look up, and they take care of each other when they have something to do.It's really unbelievable that it's like this this time.

He said to Zhou Xinshu: "Anyway, there is nothing important, you slowly report the whole story of this matter one by one."

Zhou Lichang sighed again, and said, "It's the fault of the Hua family who are too stingy. They want to take my daughter over without spending a penny. How can there be such a cheap thing in the world?"

With a sigh, Zhou Xinshu explained the matter slowly from beginning to end.His voice was very low and his tone was quite heavy.

It turned out that this matter had to start a year ago.

Zhou Xinshu's family had an only daughter, fifteen years old, who was in her boudoir. After a matchmaker agreed, she was promised to an ordinary farmer's family in Huajiazhuang.There are four people in this family, the father is named Hua Jinsheng, and there are two or two sons under him, Hua Daniu and Hua Erniu.What Zhou Xinshu's daughter promised was the boss Hua Daniu.The matchmaker is Hua Bixin, the village chief of Huajiazhuang.

Zhou Xinshu's family has only one daughter, who loves her like a treasure on weekdays, plus she is the patriarch, so the bride price asked for is naturally higher than that of ordinary families.

The two parties agreed to use the six mu of paddy fields owned by the Hua family as the dowry gift.

Hua Daniu's family can be regarded as a medium-sized family, with more than [-] acres of good paddy fields. Normally, such a betrothal gift can still be given out.

But it is a pity that in the 14th year of Zhengde, Emperor Zhengde used troops in the south of the Yangtze River, and the military expenditure was scarce, so he increased the tax by [-]%.

Under normal circumstances, the land tax in the Ming Dynasty was not high, which was one-tenth of the output.An additional [-]% can be afforded by ordinary people.

But unfortunately, there is a very special provision in the court's tax law: progressive tax.

That is to say, ordinary people only receive [-]% of their land property within the rated amount, but as long as it exceeds a certain amount, they will continue to accumulate on the basis of the rated tree amount.The more land the people own, the tax they need to pay will also turn up like a somersault, until it reaches an unbearable figure.

This tax law has been implemented for hundreds of years. The reason why the imperial court promulgated this decree was mainly to prevent land annexation.Because the Chinese have the habit of buying real estate, and the ancients did not consume much, once they have money, they save it, and when they save a certain amount, they start buying land and real estate.As a result, land will be concentrated towards the rich at an alarming rate.

In fact, this tax law is not bad.However, when the imperial court promulgated this decree, it ignored one point: scholars and dignitaries with high reputations do not need to pay taxes.

Ordinary people can't afford such progressive taxation and will stop buying land at worst, but scholars and dignitaries are not bound by this, and can buy land without scruple.

As far as the people around Sun Dan are concerned, the Hou Sun family of Huichang bought a lot of land in Beijing, Jinan, and Shandong because they didn't have to pay taxes. They even had manors in Tianjin Wei.

In this way, the annexation of land will inevitably be concentrated in the hands of the ruling class, which also limits the upward passage of ordinary middle peasants.

This situation is a bit like the later period of the Republic of China. Chairman Chiang also promulgated the same decree, but it was a pity that it could not limit the greed of bureaucratic capital for land.

Generally speaking, in ancient times, without fame, you would have no possibility of becoming a ruling class. Even if you wanted to be a landlord through thrifty management and accumulation of wealth, a progressive tax alone would kill you.

Today, Hua Daniu's family also encountered this problem.Their family is also considered a middle peasant, and they could afford the progressive tax of the imperial court, but the emperor's [-]% tax was increased, and they couldn't afford it.

It also brought Hua Erniu's family to the brink of bankruptcy.

Therefore, Hua Daniu's father gritted his teeth and gave all the land in the family to the family of Mr. Guo, a big family in Fangshan County, hoping to avoid tax reasonably by this means.This Mr. Guo was born in Juren, served as a county magistrate, and has tax-exempt privileges.

After the Hua family did this, Zhou Xinshu didn't know yet.The two parties also agreed on the date of marriage.

When it was time for the dowry, the Hua family came to give away all the land, and asked for money.Anyway, there is already a matchmaker's words. People from all over the world know that your Zhou family's daughter is going to marry our Hua family, and you have already agreed, so there is no way you can go back on your word.It's a big deal, my Hua family will pay some money to make up for your loss.

Zhou Xinshu was very annoyed by the helplessness of the Hua family, and even the whole Zhou family village felt that they were being teased by the Hua family, and the conflicts between the two sides began to accumulate.

The fuse of the incident happened at the beginning of this year. Zhou Xinshu saw that the Hua family's delay was not an option, and his daughter was getting older day by day, so he was ready to suffer a dumb loss and took the initiative to dissolve the engagement.He informed the matchmaker to find the parents of both parties together, and planned to return the property that the Hua family had given to the Zhou family.

The Hua family was playing an empty-handed white wolf, earning a daughter-in-law's mind for nothing, so naturally they were not happy.After the meeting, a word was wrong, and there was a fierce conflict with Zhou Xinshu.

When the two sides met, they were naturally ridiculed and quarreled endlessly.After all, Zhou Xinshu was the head of the village. He walked on the scene all the year round and was very eloquent. The Hua family was so scolded that they couldn't hold their heads up.Hua Daniu's father, Hua Jinsheng, is about to leave in a fit of anger.

Zhou Xinshu refused to let it go, and scolded again: "Look at your cowardice, you want to leave before you finish talking, you are really useless."

Hua Jinsheng was upset, and said with a sneer, "I'm useless, I'm cowardly, but I gave birth to two sons anyway."

This sentence was considered a great insult in ancient times. Hua Xinshu, who had only given birth to a daughter, was furious and kicked Hua Daniu's father.

Seeing that the fight started, the two sons of the Hua family also started fighting.

It's a pity that this is the Zhou family village, and the result of a duel was that the three fathers and sons of the Hua family were beaten into pigs' heads by the angry Zhou family.

After returning home, Hua's father became more and more angry when he thought about it, and when he recovered from his injury, he gathered all the people in Hua's village to kill him.

Thus, the Hua and Zhou surnames began to fight.

From the beginning of the year to the end of the year, there were more than a dozen large and small weapon fights, each paying the price of more than a dozen seriously wounded and more than 30 lightly wounded.

Seeing that they couldn't gain any advantage by fighting like this, the Hua family was also angry, and went to Mr. Guo's house for help.Mr. Guo is also a straightforward person. He said that he knows people in the capital, and he can help them come forward and invite them to come to the shop. However, the family has to pay for the money.

The Hua family also played a real role in this continuous fighting with weapons. The whole village pooled 20 taels of silver and went out, hoping to use external forces to wipe out the Zhou family in one fell swoop.

However, for some reason, this news reached the ears of the Zhou family, and this is how the Zhou family ambushed Sun Dan halfway.

(End of this chapter)