Chapter 945 – The Major Households

The Taoist temple on Jinniu Ridge was already packed with refugees willing to go to Lingao. This temple had been painstakingly acquired by Abbot Daoquanzi—during the wave of takeovers at the tail end of the northern Hainan pacification campaign, New Taoism and the Lingao Church had waged a fierce battle to seize local religious facilities. In the office of He Ying, who served as religious affairs official, Abbot Dai E and Dean Wu had clashed intensely. And Qiongshan, as the county with the most temples and Taoist monasteries, naturally became the focal point of contention for both sides.

After a round of haggling, Abbot Dai had lived up to expectations and secured most of the religious facilities for New Taoism. Although the temple on Jinniu Ridge had fallen into disrepair, in scale it could be called grand for all of Qiongzhou. Following the principle of "first stake out the land, then develop it," Abbot Zhang's policy on seizing such facilities was simply: the more the better.

"...Our central tasks are, first, grabbing people, and second, grabbing land," Zhang Yingchen had written to Dai E. "Temples are the centers of propagation. Without fighting strongholds, we cannot kindle fighting enthusiasm."

Now a young Taoist novice from the New Taoist training program had been stationed at the temple. He wore Abbot Daoquanzi's personally designed standard Taoist robe: a Tang-style right-lapel narrow-sleeved turned-collar garment, with a red Qian hexagram armband sewn on the right arm. He was attending to matters by the gate. The sudden arrival of so many refugees had caught him completely off guard—the temple actually had nothing. Due to tight funds, only a few buildings had been repaired as dormitories and office space, and the tottering main halls had simply been shored up.

Now these barely standing, dangerous structures were crammed with refugees preparing to go work in Lingao. County-dispatched staff maintained order; the main force was troops from the 1st Infantry Battalion stationed in Qiongshan. The company clerk was registering names one by one so Lingao could prepare adequate camp space, grain, and clothing. According to plan, most of these refugees would be used for Lingao's various construction sites and agricultural production.

Due to the impact of that successful pyramid-selling performance, almost all the propertyless tenants waiting for relief in the county seat were willing to try their luck in Lingao. Many were even bringing the elderly and young, preparing to move their entire families. But the situation at the congee distribution site had spread to the major households' ears with extraordinary speed, and their reaction was far faster than Yang Yun, who was in charge, had anticipated. Before the registration work was even complete, major households arrived, bringing the original tenancy contracts and the IOUs and guarantees signed when tenants had borrowed money or fallen behind on rent, to block people. In this time period, there was no concept of "going out to work to pay off debts," and these debtors had nothing of value except their physical labor.

Therefore, these creditors would never let this labor force easily leave the county. Leaving meant fleeing debts—in the past, they could send a calling card to have Lingao County arrest and return the person to continue selling their labor to pay debts and fulfill contracts. But now they no longer had such authority.

What losing tenants meant was of course clear to the major households. First, this year's rent was completely ruined. Even though a typhoon had come and floods had occurred, tenants could still plant one season of crops. Even if the collected rent was discounted, they'd still get something. With tenants gone, there would be nothing at all. And debts accumulated over the years would be written off in one stroke. Moreover, many refugees had borrowed substantial usurious loans to survive the famine and for spring planting. Now that they were going to Lingao, that money definitely couldn't be repaid.

In their panic, major households dispatched their stewards and retainers—some came personally—to the congee distribution site to block people.

Liu Xiang had anticipated this when he first heard Yang Yun introduce the operation plan. While pots were still being set up and fires started at the congee shed, he had already sent someone to summon the Qiongshan County Liaison Office's public security specialist—the Qiongshan County Police Department hadn't been formally established yet—to bring naturalized citizen police to Jinniu Ridge Temple to maintain order. He also sent for the transmigrators in charge of Dalong Bank's Qiongshan branch and Qiongshan County Court to handle issues.

But he hadn't expected the major households to act so fast and push back so hard. The entire temple was bedlam—arguing, kneeling and crying, scolding, people choking from eating rice balls too fast... Naturalized citizen police and soldiers struggled to maintain order. The scene immediately descended into chaos.

Liu Xiang had no choice but to personally mount the platform. In the rush, there was no electric amplifier here, so he had to use a tin megaphone. Drawing on the "rich bass" he'd trained through karaoke in the old timeline, he shook up the scene.

"What's all this racket! You think this is Caishikou?!"

Though his singing had always been hopelessly off-key, his voice was undeniably loud and rich. Add to that his belly—reduced somewhat but still substantial enough to serve as a resonance chamber—and this sudden explosion silenced the scene.

The natives didn't know what Caishikou was, but they could tell this Australian was angry. Everyone froze, not daring to argue further.

The naturalized citizen police seized the opportunity, immediately puffing out their chests to show their presence and separating several people who had been tangled together nearby.

"Refugees to the right to register first. Everyone else wait at the temple gate!" Liu Xiang waved his hand, drawing a boundary line in the air. "This is a refugee camp. Unauthorized persons are not allowed inside! Everyone out!"

"Your Honorable... er... Chief," a steward-looking man mustered his courage to say, "you can't let them go. They still owe our master plenty of debts!" This steward patted an oilpaper bundle in his hand and protested, prompting a chorus of agreement from stewards of other major households.

"My lord, if you take them away, our whole family can only hang ourselves." A small landlord wept, his robes covered in mud. "Last year's rent still isn't paid up..."

"These scoundrel peasants—please look, my lord. These are the guarantees those households of ours wrote last year, the year before, and the year before that. Not a single grain has been paid to this day." Another steward waved a stack of account books indignantly. "Now they want to run away! True scoundrels!"

"Chief, this is the debt Wang Thirty's family borrowed. He said he'd give his daughter to pay it off when he couldn't repay. Now he wants to run! What kind of thing is this? If he wants to go, fine—leave the girl first to pay off the debt!"

"Debts must be repaid—it's only right!"

Just as Liu Xiang was growing dizzy, the crowd suddenly parted and in came a white-bearded old man, also looking like a landlord-scholar. He said tremulously: "My lord... Chief... Since ancient times, taxes come from grain, grain comes from rent. The grain households are the foundation of the realm. Please don't act with womanly kindness and destroy your own foundation..." Growing agitated, he added: "This student has read much history. Even the emperors of the Great Song, in relieving famine, never established such precedents. Please consider carefully, Chief."

He assumed that since the Australians called themselves Song Dynasty descendants, invoking Great Song precedent would be a trump card.

"They're only registering to show they're willing to go—no one's being taken away now! As for the debts and back rent you're talking about, the county already has a plan. The cadres handling it are on their way. Wait by the gate first; don't make a scene here! Everyone out!" Liu Xiang displayed a displeased expression.

Seeing this Australian county magistrate had truly lost his temper, the crowd didn't dare press further. Thinking the peasants were trapped in the temple anyway and they were guarding the gate, they needn't worry about anyone slipping away under their noses. They retreated in disorder to the gate area where they could shelter from rain. A few slower ones could only huddle under the eaves.

Just as order was gradually restored, the two transmigrators in charge of court and bank affairs arrived—they were actually in Qiongshan on business travel, not formally appointed. In fact, all the transmigrator cadres in Qiongshan County except Liu Xiang were on business travel, tasked with building teams and providing training and guidance. Once the naturalized citizen cadres could roughly handle the work, they would move on to another location.

One was Chen Ce from Dalong Bank's Planning Division. He had come to Qiongshan to establish a local branch—since Qiongshan was the prefecture's leading county, Dalong planned to establish a Qiongzhou Branch here, with each county having an office or sub-office. The Qiongzhou Branch was also located in the Provincial Sub-Commissioner's compound, occupying only three office rooms and a storeroom.

The transmigrator sent by the legal community was Ji Xin. Besides serving as court president, he had another task: building local National Elementary Schools.

Liu Xiang convened a small meeting in a run-down room in the temple, first explaining the situation, then developing a plan for this issue.

"The situation is clear. If we pull these tenants directly to Lingao, they won't dare say anything, but the optics are bad." Liu Xiang summarized: "The major households haven't yet realized the real danger. They're just instinctively protecting their ability to collect on debts."

"I agree with the plan mentioned earlier. If the amount doesn't exceed my authority, I can approve a sum." Chen Ce restated the "within authority" condition. "But I very much doubt they'll accept our circulation vouchers. As of now, voucher credibility in Qiongshan is still insufficient—many people are skeptical. As for directly using silver or grain to pay debts, our reserves probably aren't enough either."

"Then I'll prepare to receive this whole flood of lawsuits. Cooped up for days in the rain, finally there's work to do." Ji Xin spoke coolly. "I can use some methods to have these debts cancelled or reduced—that's not difficult at all."

When major gentry bullied tenants, they exploited the fact that tenants were mostly illiterate and couldn't understand the terminology. The contracts, IOUs, and guarantees they drew up were all "predatory terms." Ji Xin had long wanted to seize an opportunity to crack down on such corrupt practices—the spirit of contract had to be built on a foundation of relative openness.

"Any problems? Won't the major households think we're using power to rob them? People's hearts may be hard to win over." Chen Ce was somewhat worried; he was instinctively sensitive about such matters.