My life skills in Daming Liver

Unlike other students, Su Ze has no intention of showing off.

When Su Ze was studying, he once asked his tutor why the art form of music was so popular in the Ming Dynasty.

According to the instructor, the volume of poems is not as good as that of Tang Dynasty, and the volume of words is not as good as that of Song Dynasty. The intellectuals of Ming Dynasty can only play music.

However, this is also what the teacher said jokingly. In fact, the prosperity of the civil economy in the Ming Dynasty brought art back to the common people from poetry, which originally belonged only to the upper circles.

Opera is such an art form. Southern opera originated in Zhejiang, legendary opera flourished in southern Jiangsu, and the northern and southern capitals are the places with the most opera troupes. These are areas with prosperous economy. These operas are also suitable for both refined and popular tastes. Ordinary people like it too.

It's a pity that Su Ze's literature is only at level 3, and he still doesn't know how to improve his "literature" skills. Otherwise, just copying "The Peony Pavilion" from Tang Xianzu in the late Ming Dynasty would be enough to become famous all over the world.

It's a pity that his literature is only at level 3 now, and he doesn't have a long work like "The Peony Pavilion" in his mind.

The skill of literature is really strange. If the level cannot be raised, more works cannot be copied, but without works, there is no way to improve the level. Is there a bug in this skill?

Su Ze gave up the idea of ​​copying dramas to become famous, Chen Chaoyuan said in a low voice:

"Brother Su, do you know? The Yu family is out of luck!"

"Yanping guards at home?"

"Yeah, an old account of Yanping Wei Yu's family was found out. The imperial censor of the Qing army caught the Yu family's handle. I heard that the Yu family had already spent a lot of money to bribe the relationship, but that Mr. Yan is not satisfied. This Second, even if you pass the test, your vitality will be seriously injured."

Su Ze asked suspiciously: "I heard that the ancestors of the Yu family were old people who followed Emperor Hongwu to conquer the world, and they were not involved in several major cases in the early days of the country. How could their family be descendants of criminal officials?"

Yan Maoqing came to the Qing army to eliminate those descendants who were exiled into the army because they were traitors, but the Yu family was considered to have a good root in the Ming Dynasty, so how could they be blackmailed by Yan Maoqing.

Chen Chaoyuan said: "It's not a crime of the Yu family, or it's not the generation of the early Guochu generation. It's something that happened to the Yu family during the orthodox emperor's time."

The orthodox emperor? Isn't it the Mingbao sect?

Gossip is also human nature, and Su Ze couldn't help but ask, "Did the Yu family commit crimes during the time of Emperor Zhengtong?"

Chen Chaoyuan said: "This is a big event that caused a sensation in the world. I heard about it from my school teacher when I was a child. I didn't expect that someone would turn this matter over to the imperial censor of the Qing army. This case was decided by the orthodox emperor himself. The Yu family is going to be in bad luck this time."

Chen Chaoyuan didn't make a fool of himself, he said: "Brother Su is also from a military household in the guard, so he naturally knows the rules of hereditary military positions. Only one person in a generation inherits a military position, and the rest of the sons will not get a military position even if they join the army."

Su Zedian took the lead. The Ming Dynasty's hereditary military position system was like this, and it was usually inherited by the eldest son.

For example, the second son Yu now, as long as his father dies, his eldest brother will inherit the world position, and the second son Yu will not inherit anything except the property given to him by the private commander Yu.

Chen Chaoyuan said: "In the eighth year of orthodoxy, the commander of the Yanping Guard had five sons, and the second son, Yu Qi, killed his elder brother Yu Pei in order to compete for the position of the hereditary commander of the Yu family."

Su Ze took a deep breath. Killing a brother is a first-class crime in the Daming Law, and it is an unforgivable death penalty.

"Originally, the facts of this case were clear. The officials in Yanping Mansion had already been convicted, and they reported to the Ministry of Punishment and waited for the verdict. In order to survive, Yu Qi appealed for injustice five times in the execution ground, and saved his life because of the appeal for injustice five times in the execution ground."

Su Ze is completely stupid, can this save his life?

Chen Chaoyuan followed his clan brother as a lawyer and was quite proficient in the laws of the Ming Dynasty. He said:

"There is such a rule in the law of the Ming Dynasty that a retrial should be retried when he is sentenced for injustice. That's why Yu Qi can only retrial five times because of his injustice."

Su Ze said suspiciously: "How is it possible! If everyone is going to cry for injustice, can the Ming Dynasty still execute criminals?"

Su Ze's "Criminal Litigation" skill is only Lv1, and he is not proficient in the Great Ming law, and he does not remember this law.

Chen Chaoyuan nodded and said: "There is indeed one, but when ordinary officials are imprisoned, they will not pay attention to the appeal of injustice before execution, or criminals will be dumbed down before execution, and they will not be given a chance to appeal for injustice. Yu Qi can appeal for injustice five times. , or because he is a child of the Yu family in Yanping Prefecture."

At this moment, Su Ze understood that the clause of calling for injustice before execution is basically a death clause in the law.

This kind of clause is impossible to use in normal times. The criminals are interrogated by local officials, and the supervisors and beheaders are also local judicial officials. How can ordinary prisoners pay attention to their complaints.

It was also because of the Yu family that Yu Qi was able to appeal for retrial five times.

"For the first time, Yu Qi framed another younger brother, Yu Yu, to kill his brother, but the retrial by the officials found that the witness and material evidence did not match. Please sentence Yu Qi to death again."

"The second time Yu Qi said that his brother died of being trapped by a hunter, but there was no trace of the trap on the body of the deceased, so the judge upheld the original sentence."

"For the third time, Yu Qi's mother, Mrs. Li, spent money to ask someone to take the blame, but some details of the person who committed the crime were not correct, and the judge again caught a loophole. .”

Su Ze is already stupid, the ancestors of the Yu family played really well.

"For the fourth time, Yu's family complained to the patrolling case, saying that the officials had framed Yu Qi. This patrolling case personally sneaked into Yanping Mansion to investigate the case, and found out that Yu's family was making false accusations. This time, the patrolling case wrote to the Ministry of Criminal Justice, requesting that Yu Qi be executed as soon as possible. .”

A commanding envoy of the third rank, in order to exonerate his son who killed his brother, was able to mobilize such energy to such an extent.

If it weren't for the fact that the officials who were in charge of the case and the inspectors at that time were all honest people, then the person who committed the crime would have been executed, and this case would have become an ordinary unjust case in the Ming Dynasty.

The orthodox year was considered to be the early Ming Dynasty. At that time, there were honest officials such as pushing officials and inspecting the case. Now that the officials of the Ming Dynasty are reopening the case, I am afraid that Mr. Qi has already been exonerated.

Chen Chaoyuan continued: "The first four retrials have already made the case of Yu's family famous all over the world, and the fifth retrial will be called the world-shattering shock!"

"Oh? How did Yu Qi complain for the fifth time?"

Chen Chaoyuan said: "Yu Qi claimed that his mother, Mrs. Li, had conspired with a villain named Zhang Long before, and his brother Yu Pei found out about his mother's adultery."

"In order to protect her mother's reputation, Yu Pei did not want to say anything about it, and was going to cheat Zhang Long out and kill him alone. But Yu Pei was not Zhang Long's opponent, but was murdered by Zhang Long. He found his brother's The dead body, but because of the mother's name, I have been afraid to tell the truth, so I was identified as the murderer."

"Zhang Long, who Yu Qi confessed to, was also bribed by Yu's family. After the government arrested him, he confessed, and Yu Qi's mother, Li Shi, also admitted her adultery."

Su Ze was completely dumbfounded. Yu Qi and Li Shi are really a pair of wise mother and son. They actually made up such a plot in order to exonerate their son.

Mrs. Li is the official wife of a dignified third-rank military general, who was awarded the royal order by the imperial court. Now Su Ze understands what kind of virtue the guard army of the Ming Dynasty is.

Baozong is not wronged.

"and after?"

"Later, the case became too big. The Emperor Zhengtong personally approved the execution of Yu Qi, the Li family was deprived of his imperial order, and the commanding envoy Yu was dismissed by the court for investigation."

"What does that have to do with the current disaster at Yu's family?"

Chen Chaoyuan said: "In the orthodox year, the Commander was dismissed and investigated, and later spent a lot of money to restore the officer, and later passed the position of Commander to Xingsan's concubine, who is now the great-grandfather of the Commander. "

"So, Commander Yu's great-grandfather was also a prisoner. Yan Yushi caught this and tried his best to blackmail Yu's family."

Su Ze now understood that whether the Yu family's position as a commander can be inherited depends on how this "criminal officer" is identified.

If all those who made mistakes and were punished by the court were criminal officials, then Yu's family would also have to be dismissed from their posts and hand over the salary they had received for generations.

As for the case of the ancestor of the Yu family, it was adjudicated by Emperor Zhengtong himself. Whether it was in the Yousi Yamen in Fuzhou City or in the Ministry of Punishment, there were records, so it was a final matter.

It's no wonder that Yan Maoqing no longer pursued the troubles of hundreds of households in small guards like Changningwei. With the Yu family, who is a third-rank official, commanding envoys to blackmail, I don't know how many hundreds of households are better than thousands of households.

It can only be said that the Yu family was unlucky to have such an ancestor!

Yan Maoqing's eye on Yanpingwei is a good thing for a small guard like Changningwei.

Without Xu Shisheng's interference, it seems that he can pass the test by handing in two hundred taels of silver.

The joys and sorrows in the world are not the same. The pain of the Yu family has become the joy of Changningwei. Su Ze silently recited "merit-1", and it seems that Changningwei will have a peaceful time for a while.

It's no wonder that Ma Baihu is so quick to sell gunpowder. It seems that the Yu family is selling assets to raise money for management.

Su Ze thought about it again. At this time, the Yu family will definitely sell their assets at a low price. Then can you ask the second son to see if you can sell some more gold coins?

Once this idea came out, it could not be taken back. Changningwei now has a little food left over. The Yu family has a big business, and selling a few things at a low price is enough for Changningwei to live on.

Moreover, the misfortunes of the Yu family are well known, there must be many big households waiting to swallow a mouthful of fat from the Yu family, Changning Wei would not give up this opportunity.

He made up his mind to visit Yu Zongyuan tomorrow to see if he came back from Fuzhou City. At this time, Xiong Yue and Lin Qingcai also arrived at the dormitory.

Su Ze told Xiong Yue about buying tea trees, and Xiong Yue naturally agreed.

However, Su Ze saw that Xiong Yue's spirit was not good, and there was a slumped breath on his body, so he couldn't help asking:

"Brother Xiong, what's going on at home?"

"Brother Lao Su is worried, and the family is well."

Xiong Yue said that he was well, and sighed again. This matter had been pent up in his heart for a long time, so he simply said:

"I'm worried about Cha Gong."

"Tea tribute?"

Xiong Yue is a tea farmer in Wuyi Mountain. His family has a tea garden in Wuyi Mountain, and he can be regarded as a landlord and rich peasant.

Xiong Yue sighed and said:

"Since the tea tribute was set in the early years of the Kingdom, Wuyi Mountain tribute tea has always been the biggest burden for our tea farmers."

"Transporting tea to the two capitals every year costs a lot of money. Once the tribute tea is lost, it takes a lot of work to make up for it. Wuyishan tea has been tributed twice in these years, and my family is almost unable to bear it."

Everyone was silent. The nominal tax of the Ming Dynasty was not high, but the tax collection cost was very high.

Take this tea as an example, the biggest cost is not the production of tea, but the transportation of tea to the capital.

Maybe the imperial court only needed one hundred catties of tea, but they had to prepare three hundred or even four hundred catties for transportation, and even prepared two teams for transportation, just because they were afraid of any mistakes during the transportation of tea.

And after finally transporting it to the capital, the officials of Taikuang had to check the quality of the tea. If the tea was unqualified, it was not counted. Every time in order to bribe these officials of Taikuang, the tea garden owners in Wuyishan had to raise a large sum of money.

When Su Ze was a graduate student, there were three great mountains in ancient history, namely the official system of the Song Dynasty, the financial system of the Ming Dynasty, and the military system of the Qing Dynasty.

If you want to figure out one of them, you must have a doctoral degree.

Those who can figure out the two items will start as associate professors.

If you can pass all three events, you can be regarded as a master of history!

The complexity of the fiscal and taxation system of the Ming Dynasty cannot be explained clearly in a few words.

However, the biggest problem with the tax system of the Ming Dynasty was that the cost of tax collection even exceeded the tax collected.

To put it simply, even if the Pu'er tea tributed by Yanping Prefecture is five hundred catties a year, it is not too much. The highest quality Wuyi mountain tea in the market does not exceed one tael of silver per catty. The Wuyi mountain tea that troubled Xiong's family The tribute, converted into silver, is only five hundred taels of silver.

And the five hundred taels of silver was not borne by the Xiong family, but by more than a dozen tea gardens under Wuyi Mountain.

This amount of money is not particularly large for the Xiong family, but the tribute tea itself is only the most insignificant expenditure on the matter of tribute tea.

To send the five hundred catties of Wuyi mountain tea to Liangjing, the Xiong family and other tea plantation owners had to send it to Liangjing in person, and it had to be delivered within a certain time limit, otherwise they would be punished.

The Xiong family has to spend money to hire someone to deliver the tea on behalf of them. They need to prepare more tea to prevent the loss of tea on the road.

Lin Lin always came down and sent 500 catties of tea worth less than 500 taels of silver to Liangjing, and the total cost was more than 2,000 taels of silver.

And what will happen to the five hundred catties of Wuyi mountain tea sent to the two capitals?

Emperor Jiajing didn't like Wuyishan tea, which had a rich taste. After being sent to Taicang, he would give it to the emperor's relatives and noble officials, and there were too many types of tea as tribute. Taicang would destroy last year's old tea every year. Lose.

Su Ze asked: "Didn't you already offer tea this year? Why is Brother Xiong still worried?"

The best tea leaves are picked around Qingming and Guyu. It is already June, and this year's tea tribute has already been delivered.

Xiong Yue sighed and said, "This year's tea tribute has already been settled. These years, our tea farmers have also been active in the chief envoy, requesting to change the collection of real color to collection of silver, and the Ministry of Households has already approved it."

"This is a good thing! Why are you worried, Brother Xiong?"

Xiong Yue sighed and said, "It's a good thing to change to Zhese Jiaoyin, but our Xiong family has been ordered to share eighty taels of silver!"