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

Chapter 192: Buying Liao Nu
"Bullshit,"

On the carriage back to the palace, Li Yuan just laughed and cursed a few times after listening to the report from Qian Jiulong, the Left Guard General.

Li Zhi killed the four good horses that Li Xiaochang's uncle and nephew had compensated him for, which was strictly illegal. However, Li Yi had also injured Li Zhi's horse before, and he was only suspended afterwards.

"Pass on my oral order: Li Zhi will be suspended from salary for six months, fined 200 catties of copper, and required to surrender four fine horses."

Qian Jiulong turned around and rode back to deliver the message. This General of the Central Army, like Fan Xing, was once convicted of a crime during the Sui Dynasty and enslaved and exiled to Li Yuan.

They are all brave and good at fighting, and are good at riding and shooting. After the Taiyuan Conglong Uprising, they have made many military achievements and now they all hold important positions such as gate guards.

The left and right gate guards led the emperor's close imperial guards and were in charge of the guards and registration at the gates of the palace. The generals were all the emperor's confidants.

Fan Fang and Qian Jiulong were not only in charge of the guards at the gates of the palace, but also secretly monitored any disturbances in Chang'an City and collected information from the public.

"This Li Yi," Li Yuan smiled. He admired this young man very much.

The auspicious golden potatoes in the greenhouse were growing well. He was now looking forward to harvesting them in the spring. If they could really yield two to three thousand kilograms per mu, even if it was achieved with special care and meticulous cultivation in the greenhouse, he would reward Li Yi handsomely.
He would not be stingy with a mere county marquis.

Li Yi resumed his post.
So he stayed and met with the officials, gardeners, and flower gardeners of Fengyi Palace. After exchanging some polite words, Li Yi returned to Chang'an.

On the way back to Beijing, he had a headache.
Fengyi Palace is dozens of miles away from Chang'an. When I officially take office, it will be impossible for me to travel between Chang'an and Gaoling.

When I got home, I told Shi Niang and the others about my troubles.

Shi Niang smiled and said, "It must be a big problem to make you look so worried. We can go with you to Gaoling and live in the back hall of the government office, or buy a house in Gaoling County, or build a separate courtyard."

Ji Lingyi suggested, "Fengzheng Plateau is thirty miles long from east to west and three miles wide from north to south. The soil is deep and fertile. There's an old saying in Guanzhong that Fengzheng Plateau is a land of yellow soil and rich in grain and fruit. We can buy land there and build a manor. The land price is cheap now, and with Alang's current status, we can buy more land."

Xianyang was the capital of Qin Dynasty, and Chang'an was the capital of Han and Tang Dynasty. They built large palaces and used nearby materials. The forests on Fengzhengyuan were destroyed. Now Fengzhengyuan is an endless farmland. Because the soil is fertile, many fruits and vegetables are also grown there.

Several women were keen on buying land.

They also like to buy cattle and people. The reason is very simple. Cattle, mules and slaves can not only plow the fields, but also reproduce and increase their value.

This reason is indeed irrefutable.

Especially now that there are disaster victims and refugees everywhere, many people are willing to sell their wives and daughters for a few bushels of rice. As long as they can have a meal, they can recruit young men as tenants.

Everything is expensive now, except human life.

The best way to preserve the value of your money, besides buying gold for storage, is to buy people and land.

It is said that the three treasures of a poor person are an ugly wife, thin land and a worn cotton-padded jacket, while a fat land and a beautiful wife are the source of trouble.

As for Li Yi now, he already has enough status and position to keep his beautiful wife and fertile land.

The powerful and aristocratic families were first the landlords and then the scholars.

As for noble families, they must also have sufficient official titles and status.

Li Yi was not very enthusiastic about buying land, and he did not like to keep many slaves. Instead, he preferred to study the manor economy and develop some side businesses such as breeding and fruit tree economy.

Pig farming is the project he plans to focus on this year.

But Shi Niang and the others thought that buying land, cattle and slaves was simpler and safer.

There is the newly renovated Wuji Fort in Yusuchuan, and there are also several houses in Chang'an City. Li Yi thinks there is no need to buy another house in Gaoling.

But since they all insisted, Li Yi did not insist.

After all, it's just a small matter. We can discuss big matters together, and it's the same for women to make the decision on small matters.

In this era, the nobles had priority and enjoyed privileges everywhere.

Ordinary people can only have one wife and cannot take concubines. Even the land that a man and his wife can own is limited. Each adult male can only own 100 acres of land. Only those who have honors can increase their land quota.

But as the Earl of Shallow Water, a fifth-rank official with the ninth-class honor, there were almost no restrictions on Li Yi's normal purchase of land as long as he did not force the purchase or plunder.

The most outrageous thing is,

Even though Li Yi now owns thousands of acres of land, as an official, he is exempt from taxes and labor service, and these fields do not need to pay land taxes or rent at all.

They just had to pay some grain from the charity granary and some household fees.

This is a very unreasonable part of the Tang Dynasty's national tax system, but Li Yi is the beneficiary of this unreasonable tax system.

All the noble officials in the court were beneficiaries of this system.

Therefore, the basic tax system of the Tang Dynasty was based on the number of males. Each male was required to pay two shi of millet as rent, two zhang of silk, three liang of cotton, or two and a half zhang of cloth, or three jin of hemp. They were also required to perform twenty days of free labor service each year, with two additional days in leap years.

If each tax payer could be granted 100 mu of land, the burden of rent and labor service would not be so heavy.

But in reality, few people can fully teach, even at the beginning of the founding of the country.
Especially in a narrow area like Guanzhong, where there is little land and a large population, and there are many powerful people and temples, the people of Luojiabao in Yushuchuan basically only get 30 to 40 mu per adult, and the full quota is only 50 mu.

If there are more people in the future, even these thirty or forty acres of land will not be divided. The land can only be divided after someone dies and returns it. However, the land returned is only for the head of the family, and generally the descendants of the original owner have priority in inheritance.
As a result, after the first wave of land grants at the founding of the country, the only places where land could be distributed were the border areas.

Granting 50 mu of land would effectively double the tax burden. Granting only 30 mu would more than triple the theoretical burden. Furthermore, if no land was granted, but the tax was still imposed, the burden would be suffocating, and in times of disaster, famine, or disease, people would inevitably flee. Many at court must have seen the shortcomings of this tax system, yet few advocated for reform.

This system was used from the Western Wei Dynasty to the Northern Zhou Dynasty, and then to the Sui and Tang Dynasties.
The nobles had an easier life, their status became more stable, and the common people were increasingly oppressed and unable to breathe.
So the government soldiers became the only chance to change their fate.
However, being a government soldier was only an opportunity for commoner landlords. Ordinary people were not qualified and had no financial resources to provide their own food, clothing, horses, bows and swords, let alone leave their jobs to train for war.

Du Shiniang, who came from a prominent family, did not think there was anything wrong with this, and even thought it was natural.

Next,
Li Yi resumed his post and returned to Fengyi Palace as director. The job was quite leisurely. This was a detached palace and the emperor would not come often. Everyone was free and he only had to maintain the flowers and plants in Fengyi Palace. It was much more leisurely than being a palace garden supervisor.

Li Yi handed over the work to a team of officials under him and could be a hands-off boss. He would have his work lunch in the cafeteria at noon every day, go back to the yamen to rest for a while, and get off work around two or three in the afternoon.

When he arrived at Fengyi Palace, he did two things. One was to divide the leftover food from the public kitchen equally among the officials.

Secondly, a greenhouse was also built in Fengyi Palace, where vegetables, fruits, leeks, garlic, etc. were grown and sold to nobles and landlords. The profits were used just like in the palace garden supervisor's previous work: one cent was kept as public money, one cent was used to purchase annual benefits for officials, and one cent was used as monthly salary and subsidies.

Of the money left for the public office, half was used for office expenses and reception expenses, and the other half was used for lending.

Li Yi had made it clear to everyone long ago that they were not allowed to embezzle money from the prison, steal from the prison guards, or withhold wages from the gardeners and gardeners. This was the bottom line. As long as they did not commit these offenses, other things like being late or leaving early would be minor matters.

Du Shiniang and the others also came to Gaoling very actively.
Gaoling County was ten miles below Fengzheng Plateau, not far away. They first bought a few acres of corridor courtyard in the county town, and then bought land on the plateau.

Buy buy buy,
As long as you are willing to sell, the price is negotiable.

He bought land, cattle and slaves, and even offered porridge to attract tenants.

At night,

Shi Niang was still very excited and told him how many acres of land she had bought today, which plots of land she had taken a fancy to, how many cows she had bought, how many slaves she had bought, and how many tenants she had recruited.

Slaves are so cheap nowadays,
"Recently, a batch of Liao slaves from Hanzhong arrived in Chang'an. They are very cheap. I heard that they were captured by General Pang Yu of the Left Guard during his expedition against the Liao people in Jizhou during his expedition to Hanzhong."

Li Yi also heard about Pang Yu's great victory in Hanzhong.

Following Li Yuan's order, he chased the rebellious Qiang soldiers from Pangyidi and drove them all the way to Hanzhong.

At a welcoming banquet hosted by local officials and powerful people in Liangzhou, he took out the emperor's edict, announcing that he would serve as the governor of Liangzhou, in charge of the military affairs of the four states of Liangji, and the governor of Liangzhou.

The 10,000 Guanzhong soldiers brought with them were stationed in Hanzhong.

Since the turmoil in the world, the various forces in Hanzhong have been fighting fiercely, and the Liao barbarians who were previously subdued have also taken the opportunity to rebel. Not only have the unruly Liao people, who have always been dissatisfied, sent troops to plunder, but even the accustomed Liao people who were once registered as citizens have started to rebel again.

Chen Mao and Chen Zheng, two general managers, were killed within a year.

But this time Pang Yu came with 10,000 elite troops, and quickly intimidated the local officials and powerful people in Liangzhou. He then sent troops to conquer the Liao people in Jizhou.

The wild Liao people defended the dangerous place and the army could not advance. The food and grass were running out. The familiar Liao people and the rebel wild Liao people were all of the same tribe, and most of them were even relatives. They all persuaded Pang Yu to withdraw his troops.

Pang Yu only used one move.
He told the familiar beasts that the autumn harvest had been completed and the people had food stored in their homes. From now on, he would collect food from the people to supply the army and would not return until the rebels were defeated.

This sentence scared the group of familiar people.

If these thieves are not defeated, Pang Yu will rob them of their autumn harvest as military rations. If the bandits do not retreat, they will eat up all their food. How will they survive the winter and spring?

A group of familiar leaders gathered together to discuss for a long time.
They dared not rebel because Pang Yu’s army was elite, and the Tang Dynasty still had 200,000 soldiers in Guanzhong.

So, the chiefs understood Pang Yu's hint that he would withdraw his army if the Sheng Liao were pacified. So, these chiefs selected a group of young and strong men, secretly sneaked into the Sheng Liao camp, consulted with their relatives and friends, and killed the chief and surrendered.

The leader was killed, and the remaining troops were scattered.
Pang Yu led his army to pursue the rebels, and the rebellious Liao tribes in Jizhou were completely pacified. Pang Yu won the battle, seized a large amount of food, cattle, horses and sheep, and fulfilled his promise to withdraw his troops.

The familiar beasts saved their own food, and even saved their wild beast relatives and friends.
Pang Yu suppressed the rebellion of the Sheng Liao people, seized a lot of spoils, and plundered tens of thousands of Sheng Liao people as captives. He sent them all to Chang'an and confiscated them as slaves.

This large number of Jizhou live beasts were sold in the two markets of Chang'an.

Because the quantity is so large, the price is very cheap.

A young and strong Liao man in his twenties or thirties could only sell ten rolls of silk, which was worth 3,600 coins, about the same as the price of a dan of rice. A maidservant in her twenties or thirties could only sell eight rolls of silk.

Some people who are in their fifties or under ten years old often buy them as gifts. If they buy more, they get one for free, or if the whole family buys, they can get discounts.

The Liao people, a different species of the Southern Barbarians, were numerous and scattered in the mountainous and forested areas of Bashu and Hanzhong, as well as in Qianzhong, Nanzhong, and Lingnan.
The war between the Central Plains dynasty and the Liaoman people never stopped, and the Liaoman people rebelled frequently.

Local governments also often took the initiative to send troops to plunder the Liao people and sell them for profit. The Liao people themselves also often plundered each other and sold them as slaves. Liao slaves could be seen everywhere in the Central Plains.

Some of them were Liao rebels, and the imperial court sent troops to suppress them and captured them as slaves, but many of them were Liao people who captured each other and sold them to the Central Plains.

On the trade routes from Bashu, Hanzhong to Guanzhong, the cargoes of the caravans basically contained Liao slaves.

From nobles to common people, there were many 獠 slaves.

This time, Pang Yu captured more than 10,000 live beasts and escorted them to Chang'an. The court sold them at a low price. Du Shiniang, Ji Lingyi and others bought more than 100 of them at once, just like buying discounted goods.

"It's cheap. We only spent a thousand pieces of silk in total. They are basically young and strong slaves and maids, mostly in their twenties and thirties. There are one hundred and forty-two of them, which is equivalent to seven pieces of silk each," Du Shiniang even said with some pride. They deliberately picked one hundred female maids and only forty-two male slaves. There were more females than males because these maids were young and could give birth to more slaves, making them more valuable.

Li Yi felt that Du Shiniang really did not regard those獠 people as human beings.

(End of this chapter)