After August, the county government began to collect taxes from each township.
Wei Zhan sent people to follow the village officials who collected taxes and record how much grain each household paid.
There are a total of twelve towns in Zhouhe County, each of which has about a dozen villages, and each village should have at least ten households.
But some villages have a sparse population, some with less than ten households.
This is very wrong.
Wei Zhan told Ying Bao everything he had found out: "There are many people who have fled from their farmland in this county. Most of the farmland is in the hands of officials and gentry. They even registered the best farmland as inferior farmland, and classified people who own three or four houses as fourth-class villagers."
The villagers of the fourth and fifth ranks could pay much less taxes, so the gentry colluded with the officials and asked them to rate their families as the fourth and fifth ranks.
In this way, a lot of taxes can be saved.
However, there were fixed numbers of high-quality and low-quality fields registered with the county government. When reporting taxes to the court, taxes were set based on the registered fields.
However, due to the manipulation of the gentry, the county government was unable to collect the required amount of grain and had to put the remaining tax burden on the poor people.
It is estimated that this is what Zhouhe County did, forcing large numbers of powerless and poor people to leave their hometowns.
Ying Bao looked through the investigation files with a serious face and said, "First, pick the most arrogant gentry and compare his land with the land registered in the county government. Then report it to the Ministry of Revenue. If there is any deception, arrest all the people involved to make an example of them."
The Emperor's teacher handed this county over to her probably because he wanted her to govern it well.
In this case, there is no need to be lenient.
Wei Zhan nodded: "Okay, I will take people to check it out tomorrow."
"When you go, bring Song Changshi with you." Ying Bao said, "Next time you go out, bring more people with you to prevent someone from deliberately taking revenge."
Wei Zhan smiled and said, "Don't worry about that. I always bring dozens of people with me every time."
He is not stupid. Doing these things is actually cutting off people's financial resources, which will definitely make people angry.
But since this county became his wife's fiefdom, it must be governed well, otherwise the people will suffer and it would be strange if he and his wife were not impeached.
The two talked for a while, then asked the servants to bring the food. They were going to eat, then wash up and rest.
In the following days, Wei Zhan was so busy that he never had time to rest, and he actually captured a powerful landlord.
However, Wei Zhan soon discovered that several officials were in collusion with the gentry, helping him conceal his land and underreport taxes.
The chief clerk and the county lieutenant were also present here.
Afterwards, Wei Zhan urged the county magistrate to arrest the gentry and several officials.
The Mei County magistrate was exhausted, but he dared not disobey, so he had to throw out a few arrest warrants and let the constables arrest the people.
The next day, all those people were arrested and taken to the county government office, where the county magistrate opened a trial.
In the end, the gentry were ordered to pay the court several thousand dan of grain. Those who could not pay would mortgage their land and houses.
Several other officials who colluded with his family were beaten with dozens of sticks and stripped of their positions.
Wei Zhan also recruited several students with good moral character to fill the vacancies of minor officials.
Next, the work of collecting taxes went very smoothly. The gentry knew that they were dealing with a tough guy, so they dared not deceive or conceal anything. They quietly paid the full amount of taxes and did not dare to do anything wrong.
Seeing the granary being filled up little by little, Yingbao finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Food is the most important thing for people. I can finally spend the New Year with peace of mind.
In a blink of an eye, it was already the twelfth lunar month. After the Kitchen God Festival, several families in the county sent New Year gifts and visiting cards to the Princess's Mansion.
Yingbao picked up a visiting card and read it, then told Mudan, "Check these visiting cards with the gift list, and send a reply. If there is an invitation, send a letter saying that I am not available at the moment."
Mu Dan agreed and went out with the visiting card and gift list.
In the evening, Wei Zhan came back and talked to Yingbao about the loom.
"We have already sent the five hundred looms we ordered to the Five Good Families as you requested."
The five virtues are not to commit crimes, to have a harmonious family and be filial to elders, to be friendly to brothers and sisters and to love the younger ones, to be hardworking and capable, and to be friendly neighbors.
In order to improve the economic conditions of the poor people in the county, Yingbao bought 500 looms with his own money and sold them on credit to the poor people who were rated as the five good families at cost price, requiring them to pay back two taels of silver every year until the loan was paid off.
"I also asked Chu Shun to go to Qinchuan County to get a batch of cotton seeds. I'll let the people plant them in the spring next year." Wei Zhan sat down at the table and picked up his chopsticks to eat.
"That's great." Yingbao served him the food, removed the bones from the fish, and put the fish meat into his bowl.
Wei Zhan has been busy outside recently and has become darker and thinner. Yingbao sees this and feels very distressed.
But it is not easy to govern two counties. If one wants the people in his fiefdom to have enough food and clothing, hard work in the early stages is essential, especially in Zhouhe County. The rich are unkind and the poor are cruel. Some villages even take advantage of the slack season to go out and rob people.
"After the New Year, I will go with you to visit the surrounding villages." Now, not only does she want to make the entire county rich, she also wants to set up a free school in each village so that all the villagers' children can go to school.
Only by establishing a ritual of shame in their hearts can their behavior be changed.
She had had many picture books written about how hard work leads to wealth, humility, friendliness, filial piety and benevolence were depicted in them. These were posted on the grass-fairy markets of each village every time there was a market, for the villagers to see, and even those who could not read could understand them.
Wei Zhan glanced at her and said, "The villagers in this county are barbaric, not like those in Qinchuan County. You'd better stay at home."
He didn't want his wife to be in any danger, because not only were the villagers in this county barbaric, but some of the wealthy and powerful were even more unscrupulous. He had been poisoned twice when he ate out.
Fortunately, he was always on guard, and even if he received food and water from those people, he would not eat them, but feed them to the chickens and dogs first.
Yingbao: "It's okay, don't forget, no one can beat me here."
Wei Zhan chuckled: "Okay, I'll take you with me when we go on the spring inspection, but you must listen to me when you go out."
Yingbao nodded: "I'll listen to you."
In a blink of an eye, it is New Year's Eve. In the evening, the whole family will get together to have a meal and bid farewell to the old and welcome the new.
Wei Zhan took his wife to celebrate the festival with his parents.
When I walked into the gate of Wei’s house, I saw that the huge yard was full of people.
The seven concubines of Wei Shixian, the head of the Wei family, all came to Zhouhe County and lived in the Wei residence.
Not only that, the children born to the concubines also came, a large group of tall and short children, some of whom were even held in the arms of their wet nurses, which made Yingbao dazzled.
They all bowed to Ying Bao and Wei Zhan, and paid their respects to the princess in unison.
The head of the Wei family stood under the eaves of the upper house, looking at it with a smile, looking very contented.
Wei Zhan was also speechless and waved his hand: "You all go and play, don't gather here." After that, he pulled Yingbao towards the yard of his mother, Madam Wang.
Seeing this, the head of the Wei family also followed. The seventh concubine, who was the most favored by him, also wanted to follow, but he glared at her and said, "Go back!"
The lady hated seeing his concubine the most, and going there would only make her feel bored.
Seventh Aunt pouted in grievance, tears almost coming down.
Cao came over and whispered, "Seventh Aunt, why are you doing this? The Madam and the Princess dislike us the most. Not to mention you, even my husband works hard to make money for the family, but he is still not liked by others."