Qingyang yamen was located in Qingshui town next door, the original county was actually quite a long way from Datong town. And since the late emperor offered Cang Zhou to Prince Sheng as the fief, for the management convenience, Yan Shengrui who had been out leading troops integrated the six prefectures into one hundred and twenty counties, either merged them or split them. And because of this reason, Qingyang yamen moved to Qingshui town and Lingjiang town, which merged into one.
The next day, Ling Jingxuan and his family who had decided to go to the county got up really early, today, except Yan Shengrui and Ling Jingxuan, the two little buns and their footboys, Chu Yan, Ling Jingpeng, Zhang Qing, and Zhao&Han couple and their kid, together with Tiewa’s footboys Long Shan Dashan, a total of 13 people were all going, besides, they had to bring some handbags Wang Jinyu made, apparently one carriage was not big enough, so they decided to take water.
“Uncle Zhao, Uncle Han, Tiewa, Dashan...”
After breakfast, the little buns that specially wore their new clothes specially frisked out of the house, the several adults that followed at the back found amused. Just going to the county. Do they have to feel so excited?
ραпdα nᴏνa| сom “Xiaowen, Xiaowu, Brother Yan, you are all here.”
Hearing his little fellows, Tiewa who was eating food threw away the bowl and chopsticks and rushed out happily to open the door. Today, he also wore a new suit of blue robes. Although it was not some first-class brocade, it was still some silk cloth that the countrymen could not afford to wear.
“Tiewa, where is Uncle Zhao and Uncle Han? We're going to go.”
Ling Wu came forward, with his eyes looking around. Since he knew that they were going to the country, he had been expecting this today. Finally it came, and he only wished he could grow out a pair of wings to fly there.
“Daddy, father, are you prepared? Uncle Ling and others are all here.”
Casting a glance at Ling Jingxuan and others not far behind, Tiewa turned around and rushed into the courtyard. The bundled hair got a bit scattered as he ran too fast. Han Fei, who was clearing the table, instantly dropped his job at hand and pulled him into the room to bundle it again, and when they came out, Long Dashan who was older around them already helped Zhao Dalong clean up the table, and then the family went out to meet Ling Jingxuan and others.
“Sorry to have kept you waiting. Tiewa was too excited to sleep last night. We stayed up with him and got up a little late this morning.”
Han Fei said while turning back to lock the door, while Tiewa and Long Dashan had already run away.
“Hehe…It’s OK. We are just arrived.”
Smiling and nodding, the group of people made their way to the ferry near the village market.
“Jingxuan, can we just go to see Lord Magistrate directly? Will those yamen runners let us see him?”
For this thing, Han Fei had been tense for a few days. On the first day of September when they split the money, Ling Jingxuan said they would go to buy land from the magistrate on the sixth day of September and let them prepare the money, and since then, he had been nervous till now, farmers like them would only go buy land from the guarantors. At ordinary times, they’d stay nervous for a long time only seeing a constable, let alone they would go to see the magistrate and buy land from him.
“How will we know if we don't give it a try? It’s not that I didn’t consider asking Guarantor Liu to go with us. But it’s just some half-saline land we are going to buy, so he doesn’t want to take it. Besides, the amount we are going to buy is huge. If we directly go to talk to the magistrate, maybe we can get a discount.”
Half-saline land was also land, unlike the homestead, its price may not be high, after all, nobody wanted to buy it, but once one bought it, that is, one had to pay tax year by year like the cropland. The main reason Ling Jingxuan insisted going to buy land from the magistrate was about the tax. As far as he knew, because of the wars all the year round, the taxes also grew higher every year, then nearly had to pay half of the harvest. Although the half-saline land might only be charged the tax under the standard of the poorest land, if the proportion was too much, it also wouldn’t be a small sum. It was still not a sure thing if Ling Jinghan could get listed as a xiucai so they could get exempted from paying tax. So before that, he had to have two strings to the bow. At least he would beg the magistrate to excuse him from one or two years’ taxes.
“Well, I don't understand what you said, anyway, I will buy it together with you, now I only wish we could see Lord Magistrate smoothly.”
Compared with his ease, Han Fei was still slightly heavy, feeling uneasy in the heart.
“Haha, Brother Han, rest assured. Among the one hundred and twenty counties of the six prefectures in Cangzhou, nearly half of the counties’ land couldn’t grow anything due to the tributaries of inner sea, almost wasted all the year around. If someone could make use of those lands, let alone the magistrate, even the prefect would receive us reverently. No official doesn’t want to have some good merits during their term of office. Ordinary opening up of wasteland is nothing. But if we could make us of all the half-saline land of the whole Cangzhou, that’d be different. It would be like heavenly huge merits. As long as we tell them what we come for, I best he magistrate will receive us.”
Seeing that, Ling Jingxuan walked while giving a soothing laugh. He had already thought it through. They’d go to the yamen first requiring to see him. If failed, they’d go to Xinyuan restaurant in town asking the shopkeeper to help. Last time, Zeng Shaoqing gave him a token, now finally it would come in handy. With Xinyuan’s connections, it shouldn’t be a difficult thing to see the magistrate. And after seeing him, he would have his way to convince him.
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