newbobooks Chapter 1180: Land Owner
Chapter 1180: Land Owner
The county magistrate finished his meal in a few bites and said, "I'm going outside the city. Come over later."
Wu Lazi left early.
Zhou Guo nodded, finished his breakfast leisurely, and walked forward slowly.
As soon as they met, she was stunned. It turned out that the person who came was the old man’s eldest son. After much deliberation, she finally chose this person.
When Boss Zhou saw her coming, he bowed and said, "My lord, thank you for your help."
Much more respectful than yesterday.
Zhou Guo looked him up and down and asked, "Can you read?"
Boss Zhou nodded, "I learned to read after I finished reading the primer."
Zhou Guo said: "That's good, come with me."
Boss Zhou followed happily behind, thinking that it was good to be able to recognize words, and he would definitely be given an important position.
When we got outside the city, it was still the same as yesterday, but looking around, there seemed to be more people today.
These people came yesterday and rested here without going back.
Zhou Guo pointed to the row of twenty accountants sitting there and said, "See? These are the people we recruited with great effort. They are the only ones in this huge county who can write and remember. But look at the people here. Just having these few is definitely not enough.
You came at the right time and helped us a lot. I asked someone to set up a table for you. You can start working today. If you don’t know how to do it, please look at the people next to you first. They are familiar with it. "
Boss Zhou was dumbfounded. Isn't this the job of their accountant? Why did he come here to do this?
After hesitating for a while, he said, "Sir, can I do something else? I see there are quite a lot of people here."
Zhou Guo said calmly: "Why, are you still not satisfied with this job?"
He looked at the venue, pointed at the food being distributed, and followed Wu Lazi on patrol and said, "If you're still not satisfied with this, then go do these, the hard work, what can you do?"
Boss Zhou took one look and immediately shook his head, "Sir, I'd better go do that."
He has been pampered since he was young. He has never had the opportunity to do manual labor and cannot afford it!
Besides, he can at least recognize a few words. How can he work with these rough guys who can't recognize a single word?
Go there quickly.
Zhou Guo snorted and laughed. He didn't know what old man Zhou was thinking as to why he sent such a person.
Xiaoshu said, "Master, I think this guy is even dumber than me. I don't know what that old man is thinking."
Zhou Guo said: "This guy is a little stupid and can't see the situation clearly, but fortunately he is just on the surface and can't hide his twists and turns inside."
She watched from the side for a long time. Fortunately, the job was simple and anyone who could read and was not blind or mute could do it. Nothing went wrong.
She was not idle either. She went to the market and talked to the people, talking about everything, including life, the land, their children and marriages.
Everyone liked her very much. They didn't expect that she, a rich and noble girl, could be so humble. She was just like the younger generation in the village, and she could talk about their farming life in such a way as if she lived in the village herself.
Her skills were limited, and she had no chance to visit many villages, so she knew nothing about them.
Let me tell you a few words, and you will have a general idea of what a village is like.
There are many mountains here, and many villagers do not have enough land. The situation has been bad in recent years, and the land has been sold again and again. They only have a few acres of land to begin with, and after selling it several times, they have even less.
Many families simply have nothing to sell, and the land they have has all gone to wealthy households.
These villages are quite remote. Although they are not as close as the old mountain village, they are not close either. These big households are really not willing to let go of even the smallest bit of money. Their hands are so long that they extend deep into the mountains.
In the afternoon, the Great Heat returned.
Zhou Guo flipped through the things in his hand and sneered, "I said, how could it be only 220 acres? Is your information reliable?"
Dashu said: "Absolutely reliable."
He was brought up by Brother Erpang, the Tiger Chief Steward. Can't he do this job well?
It is true that the Zhou family only has 220 acres of land on the surface, but in the years since they came back, they took advantage of the fact that people were having a hard time and the harvests were bad to buy up everyone's land. Over the years, they have already bought up 50,000 acres of land.
The entire county has only 380,000 acres of arable land.
The Zhou family alone occupied 50,000 acres!
There was more than one landlord in Fengfei County, and the Zhou family was not the largest landlord in the area.
If these big households divide the land, how much land will the common people have?
She was amazed, "Zhou Jia, you've only been back for a few years?"
She went to the county magistrate with the account book in her hand and asked, "Do you know how much land the Zhou family has acquired under your nose over the years?"
The county magistrate frowned, "How many were encircled?"
Zhou Guo threw the booklet to him and said, "Look for yourself. How many years have the Zhou family been back? In just a few years, they have acquired so much land. How can other families do that?"
The county magistrate looked at the booklet, his face as black as the bottom of a pot, angry and ashamed, and after a while he said: "I know, in this world, which family doesn't have land? Who doesn't have some shady stuff in their hands if they have a little money? Fengfei County is a poor county, and the people are so poor that some families can't even afford a set of neat clothes, and we can't collect any taxes every year.
Then you say, the county government has no money and no food, the court doesn't care, I want to provide disaster relief to the people, where does the money and food come from? It's all these big families, without these big families, I would not be able to sit in this position long ago, the big families are intertwined, my county government doesn't even have a county chief clerk, I have to do everything myself, the higher-ups don't support me, what can I do to confront them head-on?"
As he spoke, his eyes became red. He knew that something was unusual here, but he didn't have the ability to change it.
Zhou Guo was silent. What he said was actually not wrong. The wealthy families were very united in their external affairs. This county government really did not look like a county government. It had nothing and nothing to offer. Confronting these wealthy families was like hitting a rock with an egg.
The county magistrate looked at Zhou Guo, stood up, and knelt down. "Sir, since you have found out about this, please make a decision for the people of Fengfei County and return their land that has been taken away from them."
Zhou Guo frowned, "Get up, why are you kneeling before me, a county magistrate?"
The county magistrate had no choice but to get up.
Zhou Guo pondered and said, "This is not easy to do, but it is not impossible."
Just relying on what Wu Lazi brought, if he could get everyone in the entire city to come over, one or two thousand people would be more than enough to deal with these wealthy families in Fengfei County.
However, this might alert the enemy. It would be best if we could catch them all in one fell swoop.
Zhou Guo looked at Dashu and whispered something in his ear. Dashu nodded and went downstairs.
The county magistrate smiled when he heard her say this. "As long as you are willing to take care of this matter, the people of Fengfei County will be blessed. They will definitely feel like General Xu is dead, and no one can stop them."
He heard that Xu's army would divide land when fighting, and that they would get land wherever they fought. They were far away and poor, so they did not get this blessing.