New Shun 1730

When Niu Congyun worked in other places, the most complicated land lease issues he encountered were "field skin", "field bones", "secondary skin", "thirdary skin" and so on.

That is, land ownership, long-term land use rights, secondary contracting rights under long-term land use rights... and so on.

These are already troublesome enough.

For example, this land belongs to the Li family, and those who sell the land are all prodigals, but they don't want to grow crops themselves, so they rent it to the Sun family for a long time, with almost permanent use rights. After the Sun family jumped from tenants to self-cultivating small landlords, they rented the land they only had the right to use to the Zhao family... layer by layer, layer by layer.

But after all, land capitalization in other places is not as good as the salt production area of ​​Xuzhou Prefecture, so those land issues that seem extremely troublesome elsewhere pale in comparison with here.

Many things are simply not encountered elsewhere. Of course, people in later generations may think it is very common.

But at this time, the Dashun was indeed as Niu Congyun said: the court could not even manage the affairs of the landlords and farmers, how could it manage the affairs of the landlords and capitalists?

Before Niu Congyun set the enclosure regulations, he carefully read many land lease contracts here.

There are all kinds of things.

Everything can be rented, and the land capitalization is simply played out.

For example, the "Contract for the Dumping of Brine Slag on the River Slope" refers to the fact that places like the river slope have long been occupied by landlords, and the garbage brine slag produced by salt boiling has to be dumped on the river slope, and you have to pay to rent the land.

For example, the "Contract for the Dumping of Coal, Salt, People and Cows, and Mud and Water" refers to the fact that the road has been occupied by landlords. If you want to transport coal and salt, you have to walk, people and cows come and go, and make mud and mud, and you have to pay.

For example, the "Contract for the Yin and Yang Passage on the Dumping of the Jing Road" refers to the brine pipelines, and the places you have to go have long been occupied by landlords. To build those brine pipelines, you have to pay no matter how far you go.

To put it nicely, these are all manifestations of the "awakening of private ownership consciousness" of the people of Dashun. The wind can come in, the rain can come in, and capital needs to be spent.

To put it bluntly, capital has gone too far, to the point of being feudal, giving people a taste of what feudal lord land ownership is.

From the perspective of Liu Yu, who is "not a Dashun person at all", why do these river beaches, river slopes, vacant land, and wasteland belong to the landlords?

From the perspective of the current standard Dashun people, it is only natural that roads, land, rivers, and river beaches are privately owned.

In addition, there are also various contracts for salt wells. There are permanent tenancy for descendants, 20-year leases, subsequent dividends, land shares, land pledges in exchange for mountain silver, and so on.

Compared with the headaches of field skins and field bones in the southeast, it is much more complicated.

And do all these things affect the development of salt wells? Do they increase the cost of salt?

This is obvious.

This time, Niu Congyun wanted to directly issue land enclosure regulations, which was to simplify the land lease, and even use the court's coercive means to forcibly purchase the right to use the land.

A hidden legal principle of his land enclosure regulations is that the ownership of the land belongs to the court.

Therefore, the company spent money to buy the land, but the court could take it away in the future, because under this hidden legal principle, the company only bought the right to use the land.

However, this matter is tantamount to a change of customs.

The people of the world have a general consciousness in their hearts that the land belongs to them, it is private, not the court.

This is the way of thinking that has been developed for nearly a thousand years after the collapse of the equal-field system in the Tang Dynasty.

Before the collapse of the equal-field system, in the minds of the people, the land belongs to the court, and they only have the right to use it.

But after the collapse of the equal-field system, the land is private.

Even including the separation of the field skin and the field bone, those who only own the field skin also think that the land belongs to them.

The underlying law of Dashun is not the written Dashun Law, but the customary law.

Let's take the simplest example.

Let’s not talk about the landlords’ possession of wasteland, mountains and forests, let’s just talk about ordinary self-cultivating farmers.

Ordinary people need to burn firewood to cook.

It is impossible to legally define who owns the forest next to the village. The court cannot collect taxes, because monopolizing the benefits of mountains and swamps is the atrocities of King Li of Zhou.

But according to custom, the Zhang family cuts firewood in this area and the Li family cuts firewood in that area.

After ten or twenty years, it is a convention that this area belongs to the Zhang family and that area belongs to the Li family.

So, from the perspective of the court’s written law, this forest actually belongs to no one.

However, who among the people recognizes that the Dashun Law of this written law is bullshit?

Naturally, it is based on custom and convention.

A foreigner from the Zhao family goes to the forest to cut firewood casually, saying that this wasteland has no owner and does not pay taxes, so it should belong to the people of the world and is public. You can cut it and I can cut it, and these trees are not planted by you. Let’s see whether the Zhang family and the Li family will beat the Zhao family to death.

Therefore, the land problem here seems simple and easy to solve, but it is actually very troublesome.

Therefore, Niu Congyun was forced to be a cruel official, a dog official, and bear the infamy.

Because he couldn't solve it normally.

This is not a matter of giving money to make both parties happy, because how much money should the landlord be satisfied with?

According to the current prevailing rules, 50% of the company's salt production income, plus all the company's construction after 20 years, belongs to the landlord. If such a contract is signed, Niu Congyun estimates that the emperor can directly let him retire.

If he follows the decree, he can't even make the decree of the entire Xuzhou Prefecture by himself.

This will involve a comprehensive land survey, inventory and confirmation of ownership.

There is also the allocation of barren mountains, the redistribution or confirmation of rivers, ponds, river beaches, reed marshes, firewood grasslands, etc.

However, he is a small prefect of Xuzhou, with a few people under his command and the little funding given by the court, how can he do it?

In Niu Congyun's view, there is only one thing that can transcend customary law, written law, and court orders and become the highest law.

That is, rebellion.

A rebellion that turned the world upside down will redefine the new contract for the land in the world, and all previous contracts, whether officially stamped or customary, will be invalidated.

Only in this way can the problem of land expropriation be solved from the root, and he will have the opportunity to not be a cruel official or a dog official.

However, after Jiugong Mountain, Dashun gave up the means of destroying all the old contracts in the past in order to protect the world.

He didn't even have the ability to make repairs, because this involved the issue of land ownership in the feudal dynasty, which was not something he, a small prefect, could do?

Only by using the characteristics of the feudal dynasty, using the status of the prefect and violent means, can the problem be solved by force.

No law.

No reason.

All that can be said is the muskets and bayonets of the soldiers under Ma Haochuan.

At the end of the enclosure regulations that Niu Congyun drafted for himself, he picked up a pen and wrote a line of words to remind himself.

"I can't do anything about land matters."

Thinking about these troubles, Niu Congyun couldn't help but be curious, wondering what the two Huais would do when they encountered these situations at this time?

Repairing the Huai River also requires occupying other people's land and other people's fields.

After the Huai River was repaired and irrigated, the land was upgraded from low-grade fields to high-grade fields. How is it calculated over there?

If the court really wants to build an irrigation canal along the new Huai River in the future, how should the irrigation canal be laid? Who will pay for the canal?

If the wasteland, grassland, forest land, etc. occupied by the landlords had owners before but the court did not recognize them, how should they be calculated?

If the new Huaihe irrigation area is to be reclaimed, how will the firewood fields of the original salt households and stove households be compensated? In theory, the ownership belongs to the court, but in fact, the stove households think that it is their firewood fields?

"Perhaps, the Duke of Xingguo will find some methods that seem gentle, respectful and frugal, at least not so cruel?"

He thought so.

However, as Niu Congyun thought, there is nothing he can do about land.

He really overestimated Liu Yu.

He thought Liu Yu would have a better, warm, gentle and frugal method.

…………

At this time in northern Jiangsu.

Liu Yu's tent is temporarily in the village of Dayujian near the mouth of the Yellow River.

This is not a big village, but it is an important home port for smugglers, and the construction is not bad.

Private salt from Huaibei and Shandong is quietly transported here along the sea.

Although the Huainan Salt Field is not far away, these smugglers are still very capable and can create a smuggling distribution center so close to the Huainan Salt Field.

It can be seen how rotten the salt administration in Dashun Huainan has become.

The reason why this place was chosen as a smuggling distribution center is that this is the mouth of the Yellow River. Navy warships and patrol boats generally do not run aground in the silt area of ​​the Yellow River mouth.

In the big tent, Liu Yu was looking at the newly surveyed map of Subei wilderness in front of the whale oil lamp.

Several confidants were also counting some data beside him.

Today is April 26th of the first year of Weixin. In two days, the newly built Huaihe River will officially open Gaojiayan to release water. This place is not far from the mouth of the sea. In two days, all the gentry invited by Liu Yu will gather here to receive the court's commendation.

Reward, at least, that's what Liu Yu told those gentry.

After looking at the statistical chart for a while, Liu Yu rubbed his forehead and cast his eyes on the area from Yancheng to the north to the new Huaihe River.

The company's land reclamation is not urgent for the time being.

The most urgent thing is to deal with the gentry here and take away their land with brutal means.

He doesn't have any gentle and frugal means. The only thing that is slightly better than Niu Congyun is that he set the bait and pretended to have laws to follow. And this method is something that a small prefect like Niu Congyun can never use.

His time is very tight. After dealing with things here the day after tomorrow, he will go to Haizhou immediately.

Because the dry season is over, the time for transporting salt this year is coming soon. If you want to reform the salt policy, you must stick to this time. It won't work if it's too late or too early.

The emperor wants to carry out a surprise attack on the salt policy reform, and he needs someone to calm the situation there.

On this side, the emperor also assigned 2,000 soldiers to Liu Yu. In name, they were to calm the situation for the salt policy reform. In fact, the emperor tacitly allowed Liu Yu to do a big case in northern Jiangsu, and these soldiers were here to calm the situation.

Although the emperor believed that Dashun had not yet reached the point of internal collapse, in fact, one jailer was enough for such a thing, and there was no need for soldiers to calm the situation.

But just in case, and to make it easier to arrest people, the emperor still dispatched a group of people.

And they were garrisons drawn from Busan, Tsushima, and Satsuma Tanegashima.

The army was stationed outside, and tomorrow morning they would move south to the newly built Huaihe River estuary.