Chapter 279: The New Land Deed (Part 1)

Yi Fan realized that Cheng Dong’s words implied not just technical difficulties, but also human factors—some high-level officials did not like audits.

“No matter how difficult the department is, I will carry the audit through to the end,” Yi Fan said with a fearless expression.

Cheng Dong’s gaze lingered on his face for a dozen seconds, as if studying his attitude. Then he said, “Alright. Everything must have a good start.”

He stood up and took a file box from the locked cabinet behind him.

“This contains some financial information related to various ministries and commissions. I believe you will find it useful.”

Yi Fan took it and noticed that there was nothing written on the label.

“You should study this material carefully when you get back. It will be of great benefit to your audit work,” Cheng Dong said implicitly.

“I understand. Thank you very much,” Yi Fan knew that this must be the material on financial irregularities in various departments that the Finance and Economics Committee currently possessed. It turned out that Cheng Dong had been collecting black material for a long time. But this was a good thing for him; at least he knew where the problems were in each ministry and commission and had a focus.

“This is not black material,” Cheng Dong seemed to have read his mind. “These violations may not be a big deal, and many were not intentional. But the beginning is the most important thing. If we don’t set the rules right now, it will be difficult to manage when the plate gets bigger. So we must use this audit to eliminate all bad signs.”

“You really think far ahead,” Yi Fan said, subtly flattering him.

Cheng Dong smiled, clearly pleased.

“I think you should start with the Heaven and Earth Society under the Agriculture Committee,” Cheng Dong said. “Wu Nanhai of the Agriculture Committee is easier to talk to and is also an honest person. He will definitely support your work.”

“This department should be easy to audit,” Yi Fan found it strange. Were they starting with the soft persimmon?

“Are you going to audit it all by yourself?” Cheng Dong reminded him. “All your subordinates are new.”

“Oh, you’re right,” Yi Fan remembered this. He had no one under him. Although he could immediately draw trainees from the National School’s accounting training class to fill the positions, they were a blank slate when it came to auditing, apart from a small amount of accounting knowledge. Everything had to be taught from scratch.

Bringing the trainees with him and teaching them through practical audit cases was the most effective training method at this stage. This required a process from easy to difficult—to accumulate experience first.

“I’ll send a few professional accountants to help you,” Cheng Dong said. “But it’s only a temporary loan.”

Yi Fan expressed his determination, “I will definitely sort out all these accounts.”

With the receding of the floodwaters, the first large-scale natural disaster encountered by the Transmigration Group finally ended. Although the disaster relief and reconstruction work was arduous, no catastrophic events occurred under the gradually forming modern social management system. The losses were also roughly recoverable.

The grain collection work was already nearing its end before the typhoon arrived, so this year’s grain tax did not suffer major losses—this was a relief to Wu Mingjin. In recent years, the response from above to reports of disasters and requests for reductions had become increasingly strict, and in most cases, they were not approved. Now, at least, he could complete his task.

Wu De also felt lucky—at least they had saved most of the grain produced by the local farmers this season. If the typhoon had come a few days earlier, the matter of contracting the grain tax would have been a complete loss.

But the business was still a bit of a loss: paying for relief grain, waiving the “reasonable burden,” and paying the grain tax on behalf of the disaster-stricken households… All in all, the Transmigration Group probably lost about a thousand dan of unhusked rice this season. As for the cost of reconstruction, it was also a considerable figure.

The original plan to make a large profit by buying and selling rice between the local market, where rice was cheap and silver was expensive, and Leizhou, where rice was expensive and silver was cheap, when collecting the Liaodong tax, was also bankrupt. After the disaster, the price of rice in Lin’gao rose sharply. It was probably impossible to make a profit on the Liaodong tax through speculation.

“Now we can only step up the land survey and implement the new tax system next year,” Wu De said. “Once the taxable land increases and the tax system is changed, it will be easier.”

Wen Desi said, “But the immediate problem has not been solved. What about the additional ten thousand-plus Liaodong tax? Are we going to bear it?”

“It’s a bit difficult to continue collecting,” Wu De said. “I talked to Wang Zhaomin and learned some things from the retained staff of the Household Office. The collection of the Liaodong tax was already quite difficult, and this year we have suffered a flood. It will probably be even more difficult to collect.”

“I think we should pay it. Give the people a chance to recuperate,” Wu De said. “Paying an additional ten thousand-plus silver is still manageable for the group.”

“A big loss, a big loss,” Cheng Dong shook his head repeatedly.

“We should look at this as a government, not as merchants,” Wu De said. “If the government is always thinking about making money and not losing, and treats the people and the country as a business, can this government be run well? A rich country with a poor people is a sign of a dying nation.”

Yu E’shui said, “The ancients have long commented: the father and son of the Sui Wen Emperor cherished the granaries but not the people. After the second generation fell, the full warehouses of cloth and grain all went to the Li family.”

“I agree with that, but we are not legitimate now. We are still wearing the hat of the Great Ming. I’m afraid that if we do this good deed, the people will all credit it to the Zhu emperor, and we will suffer a great loss.”

“Let Dingding publicize it on a large scale,” Wu De said. “The people are reasonable. Besides, Lin’gao is our base. At this critical time, we must give the people some benefits to make them follow us firmly.”

“We’ll pay this year, what about next year?” Cheng Dong raised a question. “We have to maintain this state for at least a few more years. What about the Liaodong tax for these few years, and the increasing additional levies in the future?”

“As long as we implement the new tax system reform and the agricultural promotion plan, it will not be difficult to obtain these from Lin’gao itself,” Wu De was very confident about this after the recent investigation. “Let’s just treat this as a loan to Lin’gao, to let it restore its blood-making function.”

In the end, it was decided to pay this year’s Liaodong tax on behalf of the people, as Wu De requested. The Transmigration Group certainly had the silver, but it was not to the point where they could casually pay such a huge sum. This decision made many people’s hearts ache.

At this point, Wu De had no way out. The land survey had to be completed quickly and well. As soon as he returned to the Grain Collection Bureau office, he immediately held a meeting to urge the progress of the land survey and dispatched work teams to start on-site measurements in the villages that had completed their declarations. At the same time, more propaganda teams regrouped and began a new round of propaganda offensive.

After Fu Bu’er completed his self-declaration, he received a receipt. He was notified that his declared land would be surveyed and mapped on-site, and then a new land deed would be issued.

Among the several landlords in Meiyang Village, he was the most thorough in his declaration, not leaving out even a single plot of land. This was not because of his high level of consciousness, but because he was the only one who had truly seen the full strength of the Australians, and thus understood their capabilities better than others.

The other households all adopted the strategy of reporting some and hiding some. Some only reported their paddy fields, not their garden plots. Some only reported the parts with deeds, not the reclaimed parts. Some reported the whole plots of land, but not the scattered, small plots… As for the richest man in the village, Fu Yousan, he only reported his registered land with deeds, believing that the hidden land in the mountain valley was safe enough.

Fu Yousan even sent people to deliver many daily necessities to his second son and the servants in the estate, telling them not to come to the village recently to avoid trouble with the Australians.

The common people either had very little land or were tenant farmers, so they naturally didn’t bother with such thoughts.

In this atmosphere, the survey work team arrived in Meiyang Village.

The scale of the survey work team was surprisingly large, even exceeding the work teams that went to the countryside during the bandit suppression period. Not only were there professional surveyors, but also cartographers—both transmigrators and trainees from the training class. Ox-carts brought a full set of professional equipment, as well as guards. The procession was over 100 people long.

The commander of this team was Wang Ruixiang. Of course, he didn’t understand surveying at all—it was normal for a leader not to be a professional. He was good with machinery, knew how to draw, had a high combat value, spoke loudly, and could be fierce and intimidate the natives—all of which was enough to be the leader of this work team.

Because the number of people was too large and they brought a lot of equipment, and the work was not short-term, the work team set up a temporary camp on the open ground outside the village. Eight hours later, a camp surrounded by barbed wire, with a modular watchtower, was completed. The blades of the wind turbine spun in the air, attracting the villagers to watch.

Of course, such a grand scale and investment were not just for Meiyang Village. In addition to Meiyang Village, it also had to radiate to the surrounding six or seven villages. So the work team was rarely equipped with a four-wheeled agricultural vehicle to work in more distant areas.

After the work team settled down, they immediately began to measure and map the land of each household. This time, the measurement and mapping all used the new measurement system. The mu was uniformly calculated as 667 square meters, and the length and width were all calculated in the metric system.

The land verification work was quite complicated. Not only did they have to check the declared area and location of each household’s land, but for those with old deeds, they also had to compare them with the old deeds to avoid misreporting—and this was not the most troublesome part: the old deeds, no matter how inaccurate, at least provided a basic reference. The large number of unregistered lands without deeds was a complete mess. During the on-site verification, the work team found that multiple people had declared the same piece of land or that the declared lands overlapped. There were even property disputes, with people crying for justice and fighting in the camp on the spot. For this reason, the work team also acted as civil judges, and urgently transferred some people from the “Law Club” to assist. Some people couldn’t even clearly state the specific location of their land, mixing up one for another. Some misreported the area of their land, and so on. The camp was in an uproar every day, like a beehive.