The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 869 Let the common people suffer a little.
Outside the Zhao family compound, a clerk from the Ministry of Justice was reading out the charges.

Everyone in the Zhao family compound, including young children, was pulled out and made to kneel on the open ground at the village entrance.

A cool breeze blew by, and the executioner, specially brought from Hejian Prefecture, stood awkwardly, the red blade of his ghost-head scythe swaying slightly in the wind, filling the air with murderous intent.

Old Master Zhao was too frightened to speak. Most of his sons were expressionless, looking resigned to their fate, while the women and children screamed and begged for mercy.

"Are they really going to be beheaded on the spot?" The people of Xihetunbao were all watching. Li Chengliang asked, somewhat dumbfounded, feeling a chill of fear in his heart.

There were four brothers, all of them strong and skilled in swords, spears, and clubs. They had considered doing the same thing as the Zhao family, but they were too honest and only dared to think about it in their hearts, without taking any real action.

Li Chengbiao was about to say no, because Da Yu now rarely executes criminals. The execution of each death row inmate is not decided by the Ministry of Justice, but must be screened by the Ministry of Justice and then submitted to the emperor for approval.

But then he remembered that there were indeed cases where the entire clan was almost exterminated.

Several years ago, there was a case where someone privately formed a society and founded a cult in the area of ​​southern Jiangxi, northern Guangdong, and northwestern Fujian. In the end, the emperor sent the Imperial Guards to arrest him, behead him on the spot, and send his head to the provincial capitals of Jiangxi, Fujian, and Guangdong for public display.

Although the Zhao family only caused the deaths of two or three people when they occupied the land, and also secretly possessed a military cannon, they were not as powerful as those who ran cults and sacrificed young boys and girls to rule the mountains.

However, the Zhao family's private court and possession of military equipment could be a big deal or a small one. If it really came to the fore, it wouldn't be surprising if some people were killed.

"County Magistrate Wang, if you have nothing more to say, then sign and put your fingerprint on this document." Of course, we won't kill him; it would be too much of a waste.

However, there was a distinction between crimes. Those who had caused deaths were all sent to Pomeranian Port (Panama) to participate in railway construction.

Although Chinese people generally don't do manual labor there, with the current level of medical care, even with readily available medicines like quinine, the yellow fever and malaria in Panama would be enough to cause serious problems.

Those who lived there for a long time, more than half of them did not live more than ten years, and only a very few could survive, which was considered a suspended death sentence.

Those who committed crimes without actually stealing or killing, but whose offenses were not minor, were generally sent to Australia or East Germany (Texas).

The former has harsh conditions, and apart from gold prospectors, very few people settle down there, which is despairing to think about.

The latter has not yet been captured, and even if it is captured, it will face competition from the Hezhou Jurchens and the Spanish.

More importantly, East Germany (Texas) was not a good place.

In summer, hurricanes come from the Gulf of Mexico and pierce right through; in winter, cold waves sweep south from Canada, leaving nowhere to hide. Suffering two disasters a year, only the toughest can survive.

Only those with minor offenses could go to the four provinces of Anxi and the Liaodong Peninsula.

Although these places require traveling thousands of miles, the survival rate is quite high, and there are many Han Chinese people there, so it's not too hard, and it's even better than in their hometowns.

"I have reviewed the case file. You have some issues, but not many. You seem more like a pitiful person who has been dragged down by your father-in-law. So even though this matter has reached His Majesty's desk, I am willing to protect you."

Having been specially summoned by Inspector Ye to lend a hand, the gloomy-faced commander of the Northern Garrison of the Embroidered Uniform Guard waved the dossier in his hand, constantly putting pressure on Magistrate Wang.

This fellow is indeed a talented individual, perfectly meeting His Highness the Crown Prince's requirements. Sending him to New Spain to serve as a prefect for the grandson of the Emperor, Duke Wen, Mo Guangzhi, would be just right.

"Half of the Zhao family members are going to Po Toa (Panama), a place where you're practically guaranteed to die at any cost."

If you don't plead guilty, then you'll only be punished for multiple crimes, and you might even end up joining your father-in-law in the afterlife.

County Magistrate Wang was covered in sweat. He was starting to understand something. Over the years, he had connections in both the legitimate and criminal worlds of Huai'an County. Before Inspector Ye arrived, he was practically all-powerful. Now it seemed that the imperial court was deliberately condoning him, waiting for the evidence to be fully gathered before dealing with him.

Now, Magistrate Wang's only source of confidence is that the Embroidered Uniform Guard's procedures are flawed.

In the Great Yu Dynasty, despite the infamous reputation of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, they were actually subject to considerable restrictions.

The most significant limitation is that, apart from major cases such as treason and rebellion, although law enforcement can be carried out across departments and regions solely by imperial decree, the procedures must be compliant.

In other words, arrest, physical evidence, testimony, trial, and criminals' confessions and acceptance of punishment are all necessary, and the logic must be consistent.

If Magistrate Wang refuses to plead guilty now, the Embroidered Uniform Guard will not be able to quickly establish an ironclad case. They will have to try each case one by one according to the court's rules, which will probably take several months to complete.

The imperial court is in a hurry to send people out to sea to expand the colonies, and there is no time to delay for several months. Therefore, Magistrate Wang can use the time he has to think of another way and see if there are any changes.

The only problem is that Magistrate Wang is unsure whether his case has actually reached His Majesty the Emperor's court.

If it really gets to the emperor's desk, the Embroidered Uniform Guard has the power to execute first and report later, so his method won't work.

"Could you leave a member of our Wang family in Huai'an County?" After much deliberation, Magistrate Wang still dared not go against the Embroidered Uniform Guard, so he made one last request.

"A fox dies facing its den, and fallen leaves return to their roots. If there is still a branch of the family in our hometown, even if we go to sea, our roots will still remain. When our descendants return to pay their respects, there will always be someone guarding the ancestral graves and ancestral hall of the Wang family."

"Sign it." Seeing that Magistrate Wang was moved by his words, the commander of the Imperial Guard agreed to his terms.

“The New Spain that your Wang family went to is fertile land that the Spanish have long cultivated. It is driven by Hezhou Jurchens and other mixed-race people. They may do better than you in your hometown.”

In fact, this kind of thing is not only happening in the Zhao family compound in Xihetunbao, but is happening on a large scale throughout the four provinces of Hebei.

This place is not only a major birthplace of Chinese civilization, but also has flat land, making it very suitable for mechanized farming in the future. It is a natural place to build large farms.

Even though Shanxi Province is a land of mountains and rivers, as long as more people are relocated, the plains nestled between those mountains and rivers can be used for mechanized production.

More importantly, driving more people out of the four provinces would not only improve the lives of those who remained in their hometowns, but also prevent them from being left far behind during the Great Colonization period.

Li Chengbiao was a witness to all of this. In just one month, a large number of local powerful figures who had gone too far in Xihetunbao, Ximalinbao, Chaigoubao, Dukoubao and other places in Huai'an County were investigated and brought to justice.

Li Chengbiao had studied in the army and could recognize 300 characters. He could do addition and subtraction within 1,000 without any problem, so he was recruited as a temporary clerk for Inspector Ye.

He watched in horror as more than 10,000 of the 110,000 residents of Huai'an County were to be relocated from their hometowns in just one month.

After a month of hard work, Li Chengbiao returned home once. He had barely eaten two bites of food when his sister-in-law took out a piece of fine Songjiang cloth and started comparing it against him.

Lee Sung-pyo knew what it was; it was his betrothal gift.

"The Weng family in Ximalinburg recently distributed land according to the number of people. They have a large number of people, so they received more than 700 mu. It is said that even pregnant women were included and given land."

The sister-in-law's eyes narrowed into slits with laughter. Her brother-in-law had been staying for half a year since he came back, and she was finally seeing a return on her investment.

"The fourth daughter of the Weng family took a liking to you at first sight. As long as you agree, you can go directly to her room to rest from now on, and she will take good care of you."

"Once you get pregnant, I'll give you five more bolts of Songjiang cloth. If you have a son, I'll give you twenty bolts all at once!"

Lee Sung-pyo's lips twitched as he listened, and after a long while, he exclaimed, "What the hell kind of world is this? I'm a man, and I'm just a gigolo selling my ass!"

Li Chengbiao's criticism is reasonable, because in the current situation in Dayu, some places and at certain times, the way marriage is handled is so bizarre that it leaves people in later generations speechless.

Aside from the economically prosperous Jiangnan and Lingnan regions, marriage customs in many parts of mainland China are surprisingly moving in the opposite direction to the walking marriage system of ethnic minorities.

This is because of the large-scale loss of population, especially the loss of male resources, which has made people a relatively scarce resource.

For example, the Weng family: Old Man Weng has two sons and four daughters. According to the calculation of 80 mu for men and 40 mu for women, plus the two of them, not counting their grandchildren, they have 440 mu of land.

But if he were to marry off one of his daughters, forty acres of land would immediately be taken away from him.

Conversely, if he doesn't marry off his daughter, the forty mu of land will always be his. If his daughter gives birth to a grandson, the land will be twenty mu before the age of twelve, and eighty mu for a boy and forty mu for a girl after the age of fourteen.

In addition, there is no division of property as long as the family does not separate.

Without dividing the property, all the production resources of this family were controlled by Old Man Weng. His children claimed to own land, but in reality, they were practically his tenants, and his grandsons and great-grandsons were also his tenants.

So he had no intention of marrying off his daughter; he only wanted to find a son-in-law to live with him.

But others aren't stupid; they won't give their son to him. This isn't just about the son; it also includes the property rights to eighty acres of land.

This led to the bizarre situation where Old Man Weng directly gave a bride price and invited a man to his daughter's room.

The man's land will not be brought into the Weng family, but he must help the Weng family with farm work for a period of time similar to that of a walking marriage.

In this way, the Weng family would not lose their daughter's forty mu of land. If their daughter were pregnant, they could even apply to the government for the land they were entitled to.

Due to the large-scale exodus of men and the resulting extreme gender imbalance, some families not only continued to pay the bride price as usual but also refused to allow the groom to do any housework. Some men, shameless as ever, demanded exorbitant bride prices of ten or twenty silver dollars.

The eldest brother, Li Chengliang, also sighed, feeling that he couldn't understand the world anymore.

Because he got married in his thirties, some people came to his door saying that the other party didn't give a bride price, and he didn't need to work for them; he just needed to leave a seed.

Sigh, morality has declined. It's just that the girl from that family is a bit ugly, otherwise...

“Sister-in-law, you should go back for me. I, Li Chengbiao, am not the kind of person who comes to someone’s door. I want to marry and have children in a respectable way.” After saying that, seeing that his sister-in-law was a little unhappy, Li Chengbiao threw out two silver dollars.

"This is the salary you've received for working with the inspector these past few days. It's really hard for you, sister-in-law, to take care of the family. Let your brother take you to the county town sometime so you can buy some good cloth and make a couple of new clothes."

Lee Sung-pyo was quite perceptive and knew that the current situation could not continue indefinitely.

The land will eventually be distributed. People like Old Man Weng, who would disregard their daughter's reputation and go against Han ethics and morality for a little land, would not accept him as a father-in-law, even if he were a good match.

Lee Sung-pyo has received an education and already has even greater ideals.

However, when he returned to the county town the next day, reality immediately dealt him a heavy blow.

Inspector Ye personally approached him, hoping that Li Chengbiao would escort the more than 300 people who were to be expelled for this crime to Liaodong.

"As you can see, and I won't lie to you, His Highness the Prince of Liao is willing to exchange thirty silver dollars and two Bodhisattva Barbarians for our Han men, but someone has to go and collect the money and bring the Bodhisattva Barbarians back!"

Inspector Ye spread his hands and said, "If we don't send our own officials to escort and hand over the goods, we can only hand them over to the people of Wanquan County, who are willing to give us two silver dollars each."

"What? What can two silver dollars do? You only give us two silver dollars. We only have six hundred silver dollars for three hundred people."

Even after accounting for what goes to the county treasury and what's divided among the various departments, we'll probably only get a hundred silver dollars left. Divided among twenty-odd people, that's just a few dollars each. It's better to have nothing at all.

Upon hearing that it was two silver dollars, Lee Sung-pyo, who was originally planning to take the opportunity to get a larger share of the profits, immediately became very enthusiastic.

There were more than twenty of these temporarily recruited clerks. What could one hundred silver dollars possibly do?

Inspector Ye also looked helpless as he looked at Li Chengbiao and said, "If we escort them ourselves, we can pay only 30% of the food and lodging fees at the post stations along the way by presenting the receipts issued by Zhangjiakou Hall."

As for accommodation, the stables, cattle sheds, and woodsheds at the post station are fine; there's no need to be too particular.

So, the escort fee is five silver dollars per person. If we're careful with our spending, it should be enough, and we might even have some left over.

If you return, as a government official, the post stations will provide meals, and your expenses along the way will not exceed five silver dollars.

The difference between going and coming back is at least twenty-five or twenty-six yuan.

Two more Bodhisattva Charms arrived here, and people from the county, prefecture, and even the provincial capital Tianjin Prefecture wanted to buy them. One cost at least thirty yuan, and two cost sixty yuan.

Based on this calculation, as long as I handle the delivery myself, I can make a profit of eighty or ninety silver dollars per person.

Inspector Ye calculated the accounts for Li Chengshao and the others, then raised his voice and shouted, "As long as you're willing to go, each of you just needs to hand over forty silver dollars when you come back. I don't care about the rest."

A sense of dissatisfaction rose in Li Chengbiao's heart. Inspector Ye was treating him like a clueless fool.

The escort fee is five silver dollars. Haha, Huai'an County is a small county with a population of only 110,000. Even if the imperial court and the province can allocate some money and grain, how much will actually reach the county?

This time, tens of thousands of people are leaving, and the cost of escorting them alone will be 50,000 silver dollars. Even if you sold the magistrate of Huai'an, he still wouldn't be able to come up with that much money.

As for the fact that the post stations along the way only charged 30% of the cost of food, this was indeed a benevolent policy of His Majesty the Emperor, but the officials below were not all good officials.

The goods passed through multiple layers of intermediaries, each one tainted by their own corruption. By the time they reached the post station, the few postmen there had to accommodate passing officials, meaning the common people migrating there were unlikely to get any food at the post station.

At most, they reached Gansu, which was short of manpower, and Anxi, further west, which was a treasure trove for Han Chinese, where they could get some food.

Therefore, the people would still have to rely on their own money and food to get to Anxi Envoy's office. The money issued by the government office was only enough for the food expenses of three to five officials and laborers who were escorting them.

The only benefit was that the Liao vassal state gave them thirty silver dollars and two Bodhisattva Barbarians worth sixty silver dollars.

However, this thing is also quite unstable, because Bodhisattva Man also has differences in height, weight, appearance, health, and whether they are obedient or disobedient.

These pretty, slim, and obedient ones are definitely valuable, at least thirty yuan each.

But those who are average-looking, have bad tempers, and smell of sheep might not even sell for twenty yuan.

In addition, some of them might be in poor health and die on the way back to China, which would mean losing money.

This time, we have to pay forty silver dollars. If we're not careful and a few more Bodhisattvas die, not only will we have wasted our time, but we might even lose money.

"Sir, this is a journey of tens of thousands of miles, which will take more than half a year. If a few people die along the way, I will not be able to explain myself."

Lee Sung-pyo cleverly avoided mentioning these difficulties that were not easy to put out in the open, and instead chose an easier way to talk about them.

"Moreover, the court must have requirements on the actual number of Han Chinese sent to Liaodong. I heard that His Majesty's limit is half a percent, which means that out of a hundred, no more than five can be escorted. If more than five are escorted, the escorts will be convicted."

Inspector Ye couldn't say anything now; this was indeed a difficult matter.

But it was difficult, but it had to be done. Expanding the territory was the emperor's requirement. The court had prepared the funds, but 40% of them were lost before they even left the central government's eleven ministries. After passing through layers of government, by the time they reached the local officials in the prefectures and counties, only 20% of the original amount remained.

The county magistrate, the county assistant magistrate, the inspector, and the registrar discussed it and decided that since using all 20% wouldn't be enough, they might as well just take 10% of that 20% to carry out their duties.

After going through many twists and turns, only 10% of the funds allocated by the imperial court actually reached actual implementation, and even that 10% depended on the number of corrupt officials who handled the money along the way.

Of course, the Great Yu Dynasty was not so corrupt at the beginning of its establishment. The money that was taken away by each level was not used for anything else. Most of it did not go into private pockets, but was used for other purposes or to fill departmental slush funds.

The imperial court has too many expenses, and the annual fiscal allocation is tilted towards the most important places. So, in order to make things easier for the prefectural and county governments, they will naturally try to intercept the money.

Officials are all too good at making the common people suffer, and then they'll take the blame.

"We handled the case in Huai'an County very well this time, exceeding the target. The imperial court has given us two quotas for the ninth rank of provincial inspector."

"If you, Li Chengbiao, can lead seven hundred men to the Liaodong Peninsula and send the money back, then this official will have a share."

Inspector Ye had plenty of ways to manipulate someone like Li Chengbiao, who had a hand on the edge of officialdom and had experienced the benefits of officialdom.

And he wasn't lying; there really would be two quotas for provincial inspectors.

The term "Zhaomoguan" originated in the Yuan Dynasty and was derived from the meaning of "to scrutinize and examine." It referred to a minor official who was specifically responsible for verifying documents, seals, and other such work.

They may seem insignificant and have little power, but in the northern provinces where the new policy of colonization was being implemented, these officials, who belonged to the Provincial Surveillance Commission, wielded enormous power.

Their primary responsibility was to inspect the countryside and determine the candidates for colonization.

For example, Old Man Ong, who wanted Lee Sung-pyo to go to their house for a visiting marriage, was the head of the family and the father. He controlled all the land in the family and treated his children as tenants.

If his children want to break free from his control, they must apply for a division of property or relocate to another place after they turn twenty-four.

The officials in charge of inspection and supervision, who were placed in prefectures and counties by the Provincial Surveillance Commissioner, were specifically in charge of this.

If he agrees, Old Man Weng's children can divide the property and move to another place; if he doesn't agree, the children will have to continue to be obediently controlled by their father unless they give up their household registration, land, and subsidies and run away on their own.

This is the power to decide life and death with a single word; even a fool could imagine the benefits.

Lee Seong-pyo's eyes were red. Compared to money, this position as a high-ranking official was like a golden road to heaven for him.

"Does Your Excellency keep your word?" For the first time, Lee Sung-pyo stared intently at Inspector Ye.

Inspector Ye didn't mince words; he immediately wrote a letter of commitment and affixed his official seal and personal seal.

Li Chengbiao was overjoyed. He knelt down and kowtowed several times to Inspector Ye, filled with gratitude, and happily accepted this arduous task.

Inspector Ye sighed, pulled out a drawer, and found a thick stack of written commitment letters.

(End of this chapter)