freenovelworld Chapter 176 Arrangements by Noble Families
Chapter 176 Arrangements by Noble Families
Xu Tianyi greeted the crowd and spoke calmly.
"The aristocratic families originally came from ordinary farmers or military households."
They distinguished themselves in the army, or made their fortunes in business and assisted their lord, or they studied and passed the imperial examinations to enter the court.
Generation after generation of wealth allowed the children in their family to begin to enjoy life with peace of mind.
This also led to the King of Qi appointing a large number of merchants and sons of powerful families as officials.
But as officials, they were even more brutal and exploitative.
Therefore, my approach to the aristocratic families is as follows:
1. Noble families were divided into nine ranks.
Each class has specific regulations, such as the size of the family's territory, the size of the family's ancestral graves, and the number of servants. These are all to be assessed and no one may overstep their bounds.
This regulation was intended to restrict the annexation of residential land by established families.
Within the county, your clan lands often amount to tens or hundreds of thousands of square meters, occupying one-tenth of the county's land. As a result, the residences of other people in the city have been swallowed up by you, leaving a large number of people without homes and instead renting them out to you.
Therefore, I need to stipulate the size of your residential land to prevent you from illegally occupying other people's homes.
Is there anyone who would disagree with this?
The room fell silent after those words were spoken.
Sure enough, these low-level officials revealed smiles of anticipation, as if they were watching a good show.
The powerful families were now in a state of distress.
Shen Haisheng immediately asked, "May I ask the sect leader, if it were my Shen family, what rank would we be, and how much territory would we be entitled to?"
His words were naturally born of concern, given that the Shen family owned a total of 500,000 square meters.
Xu Tianyi laughed and said, "The Shen family is naturally the highest level, the ninth rank, so we can allow them to own 100,000 square meters of clan land."
As for the remaining 400,000 square meters, I need to reclaim and utilize them.
Of course, if there isn't enough room, I allow the Shen family to split up. After I instruct them to register the split, each member of the Shen family can purchase a residence in their own name.
These words are like killing someone by attacking their spirit.
Prominent families often have a large number of descendants, with families of over a hundred members being quite common.
The Shen family has over a thousand members with the surname Shen, all of whom are collateral branches of the Shen family.
Xu Tianyi's move was intended to disperse the major aristocratic families and separate the illegitimate children from the families.
If a large family doesn't live together every day, then they are bound to be less united.
Humans are selfish.
Everyone fell silent.
After a moment, Shen Haisheng struggled to raise his head and said, "Master, this is the last vestige of my Shen family's estate! Half of our 500,000 square meters has been cut off... How can this be allowed..."
"Yes, Master, please reconsider!"
"This move needs to be carefully considered!"
Xu Tianyi waved his hand and said, "Who doesn't love land! If we don't restrict your land annexation, you will seize most of the residential land first."
I'm also telling you, from now on, there will only be less, not more!
Just like the Shen family, this time I can keep 100,000 square meters of Shen family property, but not in the future. In the future, the ninth-rank families will only have 90,000 square meters, 80,000 square meters, or even less!
Moreover, I will compensate you all.
I will reclaim your land and compensate you with gold and silver at par value, which will be completed within four years.
We'll give you receipts now, so you won't feel uncomfortable.
The crowd looked at each other in bewilderment, but since Xu Tianyi had spoken, no one dared to question him.
Soon, everyone nodded in agreement.
Seeing that everyone seemed to understand, Xu Tianyi immediately moved on to the next item.
"The second thing after that was..."
The family's agricultural land was reclaimed.
The land annexation by powerful families was also reflected in agriculture.
Vast areas of paddy fields and rice paddies have been encroached upon, causing immense suffering to the people.
(So sleepy, need to rest for a bit, will consider updating again tomorrow.)