Ming Dynasty: Summoning game players at the beginning

Chapter 47 Who Earned My Money
"Oh no, we're too late. There's no more money to be made from the county government office." Lu Xiaobu pointed at the account books and tax books piled on the clerk's desk.

"What? You can understand ancient account books?"

Huang Zilong couldn't believe it. He took a pale yellow booklet and flipped through it. Others followed suit and looked through the ancient government documents. The whole office was filled with the sound of pages turning.

This booklet records people's names, number of people in each household, lijia, official duties, etc. It is the endless stream of traditional Chinese characters that makes people dizzy.

Although he could guess the general meaning based on the context, traditional Chinese characters were too unfriendly to him.

The four words "ancient account book" sound normal to the player's ears, but to the clerk's ears, it sounds like they are forcibly muted, and it sounds like "** account book", with the first two words of account book not pronounced at all.

"This is the Yellow Book that records household registration. There's also a matching Fish Scale Atlas for collecting agricultural taxes. With these, we can clearly understand the population and taxation of the entire county."

Liu Changsheng lowered his head and looked around, then picked up a fish scale atlas from a pile of books on another table.

"I heard the main mission is to control the entire city and master the tax system..."

Huang Zilong didn't like traditional Chinese characters, but he still pretended to pick up a fish-scale booklet of Lijia and looked through it.

The booklet begins with a land distribution map of the entire Lijia, with pieces of land squeezed together like closely arranged fish scales. Following it is the shape of the land under each book name, with both graphics and the number of acres of land.

The family's land was broken into pieces, scattered here and there. After planting the land west of the village, they had to plant another piece of land.

If your neighbor refuses to join you in building irrigation ditches, you will have no choice but to build another one or carry water everywhere yourself.

It's time-consuming, laborious and thankless.

No wonder it is said that the natural economy is inefficient. The land is fragmented and disorganized, water conservancy facilities cannot be built, and people have to run around to take care of the land. How can this be efficient?

Huang Zilong suddenly remembered something and looked at Lu Xiaobu beside him. "Come to think of it, I only saw the household registration and land area. How did you know there was nothing to be gained from these books?"

"I don't have the ability to read books. These clerks said that there is nothing left in the county's granary and silver vault." Lu Xiaobu pointed to the clerks standing beside him.

"What? You've taken advantage of us!"

Huang Zilong threw the book away angrily. The thin book fell to the ground with only a slight sound, but to the clerk's ears, it was more shocking than the sound of a guillotine beheading.

"Tell the truth! Have you embezzled the warehouse and are now using us to settle the accounts?" Lu Xiaobu and Huang Zilong stood side by side, like a pair of door gods with thick eyebrows and big eyes in front of the gate.

"It's none of our business!" The clerks staggered, their legs giving way as they fell to their knees. "On a normal day, the masters use the money and grain in the warehouse to lend money, and sometimes your relatives come with notes to take the money and grain. The clerks never say no, so we little people don't dare to ask, let alone stop them!"

"Then where did our profits go? Tell me or not!" Huang Zilong drew his sword and put it on the clerk's neck. "If you don't, I'll make you lose your head!"

"Ah!" The clerk screamed, tears welling up in his eyes.

"You'll lose your head if you cry!"

The clerk quickly suppressed his grief, even trying to hold back his tears. "Perhaps those gentlemen's relatives and friends took it away... They left in such a hurry last night, some of them still made it. Searching now should yield some results."

"Then you lead the way! If we can't find anyone, you'll be the first one to be attacked!"

"Wait!" Liu Changsheng held up several yellow books and fish scale books, blocking them in front of the clerk. "These books are full of outdated data, and the yellow books are copied year after year, with only a few household names changed at most. You can't collect taxes based on this. Where are the real tax books?"

"Hmm?" Huang Zilong and Lu Xiaobu snorted in unison, simultaneously placing their steel knives on the clerk's neck. "You're not being honest."

Tax and service register? !
The clerks were all shocked. Even the nerdy county magistrate didn't know about the existence of such a private thing as the tax and labor service register, let alone ordinary people.

This former thief-turned-"righteous soldier" could not only fluently read the booklet, identifying errors and omissions, but also directly pointed out the existence of the real original booklet. It was like a primary school student reading advanced mathematics with great relish, only to score a test that outperformed a group of university students.

This person is definitely not from an ordinary family. He is most likely a rich man from an official family, or a clerk family. I have seen and heard of him before.

But why would a rich man with a promising future ruin his own future by joining the bandits and causing chaos?

"It's unfair!" The clerks knelt down again, their knees red and swollen from the impact.

The clerk whose neck was held at stake was crying in his heart, wondering why he was always the one with the knife at his neck. Couldn't he find someone else to threaten?

"The tax and labor land in this county are all under the charge of the household clerk. He always issues tax books and sends people to the countryside to collect taxes. After the taxes are paid, he will collect the books to prevent others from collecting them."

"Where is he!" Lu Xiaobu's tone became heavier.

"Others..." Several clerks looked at each other, as if they thought the question was a bit foolish, "Others were killed by the beggars."

"Killed?" Lu Xiaobu was puzzled. Huang Zilong leaned over and whispered to him, "It must be the 'Swap House Tactics' from a few days ago. Dozens of players rushed into the county government office and killed everyone indiscriminately."

"Oh—I was wondering why there were so few friendly troops back then. So they used us as bait and went to attack the county government office themselves, right?"

"Where is his home? Lead the way."

Liu Changsheng grasped the key point. Although the person was dead, as long as the house in the city was still there, there was a possibility of finding the bottom of the list.

Controlling a county town is just conquering a city by force. If you want to quickly control the population and tax resources of a county, you need to obtain tax information.

Otherwise, each household would have to go for a census and survey the land.

If they tried to seize the county town now, they would sooner or later be surrounded by the Ming army, so they had no time to do this.

Of course, there are ways to be quick, efficient and economical - cooperate with local gentry and powerful people, quickly understand the grassroots with their assistance, and establish a primary tax system.

However, this was quickly rejected by most players.

Before they came, the gentry and powerful people controlled the grassroots. Now that they are here, they have to cooperate with the gentry and powerful people. Wouldn’t their trip be in vain?

Huang Zilong asked, "What modern equivalent is this study clerk?"

Liu Changsheng: "Probably the head of the finance department."

"Well, let's start with the home of the late finance chief and make a lot of money from him." Huang Zilong clenched his fists, with a confident attitude as if he wanted it all.

"Wait a minute, the county's oil and water zones seem to be divided into grids—it's right there in the main quest description."

"What?" Huang Zilong and the others raised their hands and scratched the air, only to see that the description below the main task had added a new paragraph of additional rules, as well as a simple floor plan of the county town.

Six grids were outlined on the floor plan with lines of different colors, and six teams of thirty people were assigned to collect "reasonable burdens" - rich households and merchants provided money and grain, and the poor provided manpower and material resources.

The extra one hundred or so players were responsible for leading the militia to patrol the entire city to prevent thugs and ruffians from taking advantage of the opportunity to cause chaos.

"Oh my god, our team was assigned to the third grid, which is the corner of the city farthest from the county government office!"

"What's worse is that this time the credits will be settled in a 30% to 70% split..." Lu Xiaobu hung his head, like a defeated dog getting wet in the rain.

(End of this chapter)