Chapter 87 Grabbing the Land Shows Greed

He Shen is flexible in mind, smart and capable, and has a good way of making money.In more than 20 years, he has accumulated huge wealth for his family, which should be said to be inseparable from his good financial management and wealth accumulation. He Shen has accepted countless bribes from others throughout his life. If it is only kept at home, the money will be dead. Of course, the shrewd He Shen would not do this.So he invested his assets in various industries in the society to make money with money, in order to achieve the effect that the flow of water will not be corrupted, and the hinges will not be moths.Because he has a lot of assets involved, and the investments are both light and heavy, and he himself has a lot of official duties, so he focuses on the important projects, and those fragmentary investments are taken care of by his family and housekeeper.

In addition to plundering wildly, occupying a large amount of land, and collecting high rents, Heshen also purchased a large number of houses inside and outside the capital and rented them out for high rents; he also lent usury and charged high interest.At the same time, he is also engaged in industrial and commercial activities, and his business scope is very wide. As long as he can make money, he will do anything.His family opened pawn shops, money shops (banks), printing bureaus, account bureaus, medicine shops, porcelain shops, antique shops, bow and arrow shops, cabinet shops, grain shops, hotels, bar houses, and coal mines in Mentougou, West Beijing.In addition, his family also owns 80 large carriages and has been engaged in transportation for many years.Furthermore, He Shen also took advantage of his family's weddings and funerals to extort other people's property.

Among these various projects, land rent is the most valued by Heshen.Heshen owns a large amount of land. It is said that his family owns 8,000 hectares of land (800,000 mu). Although there is no exact record of this figure, it at least shows that Heshen owns a huge amount of land. In feudal society, the emperor and officials at all levels were actually landlords, large and small, so it is normal for He Shen to value land.Although the land of the Heshen family spread all over the country, they were mainly concentrated in Zhili (now Hebei Province), Rehe, Fengtian (now Liaoning) and the Beijing-Tianjin area.The south of Beijing is centered on Baoding, including Qingyuan, Yixian, Dingxian, Wanxian, Xiongxian, Rongcheng, Dingxing and Ansu, etc.; the east of Beijing is centered on Tianjin, including Baodi, Renqiu, Jinghai County, Wen'an counties, Jizhou, Qinghe, Dacheng, Bazhou, etc.; the Beijing area mainly includes Daxing, Wanping, Tongzhou, Changping, Shunyi and Pinggu, etc.In addition, there are also some lands in Qiangzi Road and Gubeikou near Chengde, and in the Jinzhou area of ​​Fengtian in the northeast.For example, he owns 72 items of land in Ansu and other counties, with a total of 766 hectares, 70 mu and 7 cents a cent, worth a total of 118,065.12 taels of silver. 3,800 taels, 2,546 taels of rent silver each year, 26,916 taels of 728 taels of rent money; he owns 19 items of land in Jizhou, According to the deed, the total land is 117 hectares, 63 mu, 7 cents and 3 cents, and the total value is 28,922.42 taels of silver. ; There are three items of land in Gubeikou and other places. According to the deed, the total land is 382 hectares, with a total value of 6,850 taels of silver, and a total of 952.4 taels of silver for rent every year.The land in these three areas together has a total of 94 items, 1,266 ares, 35 mu, 4.4% of the land, and a total value of 153,837.5 silver. Twenty taels, the price is 3,800 taels, a total of 3,498.4 taels of rent silver each year, and 30,435 taels of 728 taels of rent.

He Shen has a large amount of land, of course he does not grow it himself, but rents it out to tenants, and then collects land rent.Not only that, but he also relied on his power to deliberately increase the rent, sometimes even twice that of others.In the face of drought and locusts, the tenants worked hard for a year, and sometimes even a year's harvest was not enough to pay the rent, so they often fought against rent and grain. According to historical records, Wang Tan's family lived in Shengjiatun, Tongzhou for generations. His grandfather's name was Wang Fulong. In the late Ming Dynasty, it was a relatively wealthy family in the area.After the Qing soldiers entered the customs, Wang Fulong took 14 hectares and 59 mu of land in the second year of Shunzhi, and invested it as Zhuangtou of the House of Internal Affairs. He paid an official land rent of 72 taels and five cents a year. .In the 31st year of Qianlong's reign, it was allocated to Baylor's Mansion. In the 32nd year, Baylor measured the village's first-class health-care land, including a total of 28 hectares and 80 mu. , including the previous rent payment of one hundred and eighty-two taels of silver, all are still paid by the head of the original village.

In the fifty-fourth year of Qianlong's reign, Heshen's family, Wang Ping, came to the village and claimed that there were 29 houses here, all of which were purchased by the ten-head concubine (that is, Fengshen Yinde) at a price of 2,800 taels, and the rent was ordered to increase.In the next year, Kangjie, the head of the village, was changed to a scattered tenant. Only three hectares and more than 20 mu of land were divided into three hectares, and the rest of the land was distributed to each tenant. Fourteen taels and five dollars.Wang Tan and others used the land to be filled by the Yizu belt, and the clan battles were their livelihood. Since then, the land that has been divided into crops is too small to support them. Moreover, most of the land is barren loess, and it is difficult to pay for the steep increase in rent.Because of the fear of Heshen's power, for ten years, he forbears and dare not appeal.

Later, when Heshen's house was raided, Wang Tan was able to redress his grievances. He requested that the land be kept by them and paid according to Baylor's old fixed rent bank.And according to the report of Wu, a colleague of Shudong Road, the young crops were in the wild at the time of the measurement, and the fertility of the land can be seen at a glance. It was immediately found out that the land was not worth four hundred and thirty forty taels of rent. Profit-seeking has caused the household to be controlled by suffering. If it can be reduced now, it should be submitted to the household department for approval.It is controlled by Wang Tan and others, and it is still the first section of the village.In the forty-sixth year of Zha Qianlong, it was decreed that all the affairs of the Zhuangtou of the branch mansion should be handled by the Wang Mansion itself, and the House of Internal Affairs does not need to handle it. Because Zha Wangtan and other households have sold the land from the Baylor Mansion, people will transfer it wherever they want. Now that the Zhuangtou of the full mansion is comparable, and now that he has entered the government, whether Wang Tan and others should still be returned to the Ministry of Internal Affairs as the head of the Zhuangtou, and the land should also be rented by the Ministry of Internal Affairs along with others, please be verified by the Ministry of Household Affairs.

Let's take a look at the comparison of the rents received by Heshen and Baylor: when Wang Tan and others owned 28 hectares and 80 acres of land, when they belonged to Mianyue Baylor, they only collected 182 taels of rent per year, forcing Included in Heshen, the annual rent is 446 taels, more than doubled.Later, according to a survey by Wu, a fellow acquaintance on Shudong Road, this place is really not worth four hundred and thirty forty taels, and it can be measured and reduced.The official who heard the case said: Originally investing in Zhuangtou is different from old circle Zhuangtou.In the fifty-sixth year of Qianlong's reign, it was clarified by Heshen that it was handled as a whole under the enclosure of land and house slaves.Wang Tan, Wang Tingzhong, Wang Bingxin, Wang Yunzhao and Wang Binglun, who have not yet appeared in the case, have not yet been brought to the case. The Minister's Ministry has checked the forehead concubine Fengshen Yinde's purchase agreement, and there is no name for them. According to Mian Yue, the fourth-rank clan of Baylor Mansion: When the land was sold, Wang Tan and others had already returned to Heshen because the first class in the village refused to accept the restrictions on a daily basis and went with them.If it is handled according to the domestic slaves of Yindi, it should be handed over to the flag official for sale. If it is used as the head of the village, Wang Tan and others should still return to Baylor Mansion.In this way, Emperor Jiaqing finally agreed with Wang Tan and others to re-allocate the land to the clan Mianyue.

From the specific cases above, it can be seen that Heshen more than doubled the land rent regardless of the life and death of the tenant farmers.This kind of exploitation by killing chickens and extracting eggs made the tenants of his family, even the head of the village and the head of the garden, complain.This severe exploitation has caused many people to go bankrupt, ruined their families, seriously disrupted social order, and caused political turmoil.And Heshen did more than ten or hundreds of such things?Therefore, He Shen's behavior played a role in fueling the instability of the political situation.

Collecting land rent is one of the important positive incomes of the Heshen family every year.Although it was less than the money he received from embezzlement and bribery, the money was his family's fixed income, and it made sense from a legal point of view, so he could accept it confidently.Moreover, most of the large amount of agricultural by-products and fresh fruits in the manor are for their family to enjoy every year, so He Shen will naturally attach importance to this aspect of income.