Chapter 489 The wealthy family is in ruins
Ma Su was appointed as the pastor of Yizhou. This news caused panic throughout Chengdu. All local officials in Yizhou panicked, and some timid officials even began to write suicide notes.
There is no way, Ma Su's reputation is too scary.
In the past few years, Ma Su's many impressive achievements have been so dazzling that they have eclipsed all his former reputation. But these Shu officials will never forget how Ma Di got up in the first place!
He once proposed the land equalization method in Longyou! More than one family was exterminated under his hands, and even the Zhou family, a prominent local family, was killed by Ma Su!
This man is back, which in a sense represents the attitude of the court. The Han court did not intend to relax its supervision of Shu, and might even have the intention of letting Ma Su come to Yizhou to show his authority!
No matter what the court means, it is still a ghost story for the local wealthy people. Among them, several wealthy families of the Qiao family and the Du family have begun to contact the family head, wanting to know what the imperial court means.
Could it be that those Jingzhou people are planning to kill the donkey?
But where Ma Su goes is not determined by their actions. When Chengdu was in panic, Ma Di had already arrived in Nanzheng.
After entering Yizhou, Ma Di also discovered that Shu was indeed reaching its limit. Even in Hanzhong, life has become difficult for many people.
That is to say, because the Northern Expedition has achieved a staged victory, everyone sees hope that life will get better, so the current suffering can be endured.
"It seems that before clearing the land, I have to clean up the stall left by the prime minister." Ma Di looked at the land and farmers along the way, and said suddenly after a long silence.
"Shu has sacrificed a lot for the Northern Expedition. We still need to revise the local tax system as soon as possible. If we continue to maintain the previous system, I am afraid that problems will soon arise in Shu."
Over the years, Yizhou has continued to use all the systems implemented by Zhuge Liang to serve the military. This system gave the Han army huge mobilization power and maintained the Northern Expedition for eight years.
But this is not without cost. What he is losing is the future of Yizhou. These side effects will show up over time, eventually making Shu poorer and poorer.
Historically, because the Shu Han could not be defeated, they could only maintain the original system. But now that the Han Dynasty has regained Guanzhong and moved its capital to Chang'an, it is time for reform in Yizhou.
"This is not a small project. I'm afraid the envoy will have to work overtime when we get to Chengdu." Li Mu did not object, but looked at Ma Su meaningfully.
"If you can still work as hard as you did in Longxi County, none of this will matter."
Li Mu's teasing made Ma Su twitch his mouth. Apparently his old partner was dissatisfied with him for being lazy in handling official duties.
But we can't blame Ma Su. After all, after fighting hard every day in the battlefield, Ma Su is really not in the mood to continue working overtime.
I've been fighting all my life, can't I enjoy it? .jpg
Ma Su took about twenty people with him and quickly headed south along the road. A few days later, Yizhou Mu successfully arrived in Chengdu, his seat of government.
Outside Chengdu, officials from Yizhou, big and small, came out to welcome Ma Su, each with a forced smile.
"Welcome Zhou Mu to return to Chengdu to guide the work!"
"Welcome the envoy!"
"Now that the envoy is here, many things in Yizhou will be solved!"
This group of Yizhou officials were very hostile to Ma Su, but they had no choice but to pinch their noses and welcome him.
Ma Su did not find fault with this, but entered Chengdu with his seal and ribbon and quickly took over various tasks. With the anxious cooperation of various officials, Ma Di quickly completed the transfer of power.
After the smooth handover of power, Ma Di quickly appointed Li Mu as the chief secretary, responsible for assisting the state pastor in handling large and small affairs. The first order Ma Su issued was to investigate Yizhou's taxes and quickly sent his confidants to take over the archives room.
Ma Su has become accustomed to all these actions, and it is the same process as long as he is asked to handle government affairs. However, Ma Su's actions made all the officials below tremble with fear, and they sighed in their hearts that the person who came was indeed evil.
It seems that Ma Su is really here to establish his authority!
But even so, all the aristocratic families can only admit that they are unlucky. At this point in time, they had no choice but to flip the table when facing Ma Su.
But flipping the table... Unless they are crazy, how can they make trouble when the big man is at the height of his power? That is because he thinks he has lived enough.
Therefore, within a few days of Ma Su taking office, Ma Su found that all his decrees had not encountered any obstacles. The local wealthy families were in ruins, and Ma Di did whatever he said.
Ma Su's first task was to check the land deeds to prevent wealthy families from falsely declaring their land. All wealthy families who want to move to Guanzhong and purchase new land must hand over their land deeds and re-measure their farmland.
This blocked the way for the Yizhou clan to take advantage of the situation, but even the Qiao family did not take any action in this regard.
And when Ma Su ordered the land cleared, the powerful nobles in Shu County only complained, and no one dared to cause trouble.
Ma Su's reform plan for Yizhou is not complicated, but it is more troublesome to implement. He needs to send people to clear out the land in one county and conduct a thorough population survey. Then, tax reductions and exemptions will be implemented for each county based on the thoroughly investigated information.
It would be better if we could get some farmland from these wealthy families, so that the court could have enough land to reward soldiers. Ma Su even planned to build military mansions in parts of Yizhou to maintain the central government's control here.
The only thing that made Ma Su feel a little crisis was that the garrison in Yizhou was too few at the moment. Even in the city of Chengdu, there are only two thousand troops stationed there, and most of them are militiamen.
After all, in the past, most of the time, the only garrison in Yizhou was the Central Forbidden Army to maintain law and order. But after Liu Chan ran to Chang'an, the Imperial Army also followed, and the garrison in Chengdu instantly became much tighter.
However, Ma Su was not particularly worried about this. Instead, he believed that it would help commit suicide.
Under Ma Su's order, a thorough investigation in Yizhou began. Lord Bo Li Mu took his men and started from Shu County, and counted the population and acres of land in each county.
It was extremely smooth at first, and many "unclaimed lands" that had been covered up were discovered. In Mianzhu alone, thousands of people were found to be living in hiding. The wealthy people who were found out did not put up any resistance and quickly confessed and accepted the punishment without any hindrance.
After successfully arriving in Ma Su, I felt like I had come to the wrong place. Why did I feel that checking accounts in Yizhou was safer than fighting barbarians in the north?
Why are you wealthy people so ruined? You have to fight!
In this way, the inventory operation quickly expanded from Shu County to Sanba, and then to the surrounding border counties, and finally encountered a problem in Jiangzhou.
The local remote wealthy families refused to cooperate with the government's work and dispatched clan members to fight against the tenant farmers.
However, that's it. Small-scale Ma Su is not interested anymore.
"How good is the foundation that the Prime Minister has given me? There is no risk at all..."