Volume 2: Soaring! The Overlord of the Region Chapter 196 The World Becomes Transparent Again (V)
"Everyone, this is the ground of this map. Those two brick houses are the houses of Liu San's family on the outermost side of this map."
"Hmm." A young officer whose face was completely disfigured by a vertical wound from forehead to mouth corner calmly put away the telescope: "Old Du, there is a large yard on the hillside behind Liu San's house. Whose house is that?"
"Well, you can see far ahead. That is the courtyard of the local Mr. Tian. Mr. Tian is a juren, and his ancestors had two jinshi, one of whom was said to have been an imperial censor. Mr. Tian's second son also passed the imperial examination three years ago, but I heard that he failed the imperial examination two years ago."
"Oh~Okay, let's start from Mr. Tian's house."
Just when Zhang Wenhua was in charge of Guangtong Township, Ma Ran, the son of Ma Lin, the Kaiyuan lieutenant general who was recruited into Henghaiwei, successfully attracted the attention of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince because of his heroic performance in the Battle of Sarhu. Ma Ran, at this time, as the general flag of Henghaiwei, led a team of 16 people and entered the second capital of Guangtong Township, the 15th map.
The reason why there are sixteen people is, of course, that in addition to the fifteen work team members, there is also a guide.
The guide's name was Du Qi, and he was originally an ordinary farmer in the area. He was the only strong laborer in his family, and he had a wife and two children. The family of four had one and a half acres of thin land of their own, and they also rented four or five acres of land from others. In addition, the business here was booming, and during the slack season, his wife would set up a stall in the village square to sell soup dumplings and other things. In short, they could barely make ends meet.
Normally, a family like the Du family was the lowest of the lowest, and they generally didn't have to do corvée labor. Even if they had to serve, they couldn't be transferred too far. But the head of this jia had chosen him to serve, and he had been doing so for three consecutive years. If Du Qi didn't agree, he would be beaten, and not only him, but the other three people in his family would be beaten as well. He reported it to the village elders, but they didn't care. In the end, Du Qi had no choice but to go to serve.
After three years, because the family had no strong labor, the output of their land was not enough to pay the taxes, and other landlords no longer rented land to their family... In the end, the two children starved to death, the wife ran away, and the family lost the little land they had. Naturally, Du Qi became a refugee.
When Zhu Youdong went north to Liaodong last year, he had already promised his subordinates: If Liaodong wins, I will start the work of rebuilding the Yellow Book after I come back. Before that, those who stayed in Nanjing should make preparations first.
The most important thing in this preparation is to find a guide! After all, without the sincere help of local people, it is very likely that a working team will be at a loss.
As for the guide, who could be more suitable than someone like Du Qi who has a deep blood feud? And now the entire grassroots of Daming is rotten, it is not easy to find such a person.
Why did Zhu Youdong build 400 work teams at once? That was because Zhang Yicheng, Xu Guangqi and others found at least 400 guides during this period. Almost all of these guides had their families destroyed and their loved ones killed!
Led by Du Qi, the group quickly approached Master Tian's courtyard. Ma Ran asked several of his soldiers to disperse to nearby high points before he personally knocked on the other party's door knocker.
Soon the family's doorman came out to open the door.
"Please inform me that I am Ma Ran, the general flag bearer under Commander Cao of the Henghai Guards. I am here to conduct a population census under the order of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince. Please ask your family master to come out and see me."
The gatekeeper of such a wealthy family naturally knew that Zhu Youdong wanted to check the population information. After listening to Ma Ran's words, he didn't say anything more, and directly asked everyone to wait for a moment, and then ran back to the house quickly.
In a short while, the entire Tian Mansion's main gate opened wide, and Old Master Tian came out to greet them personally: "Ah, your Highness's personal troops have arrived. This humble residence is truly honored."
"Haha, you are too polite, old man. I might be a bad guest."
"No way. Your Highness's personal army, no matter how evil can it be?"
After the two sides had finished talking, Ma Ran began to ask, "Old man, may I ask how many people are there in your family?"
"Oh, there is the old man, one wife and one concubine, two sons, two daughters-in-law, and a grandson. A total of eight people."
"Hey, old man, where is the concierge from before?"
"Oh, that's right. Tian Daniu is my family's servant, so he counts as one. That makes nine people."
"Old man, your house is so big. You told me there are only nine people in this family? Do you think I'm easy to bully?"
"Hey, General, how dare I bully you? You are the prince's man. There are only so many people in our family. Well, our house was renovated by craftsmen, and they left after the renovation. You can't be considered as a member of our family."
"Well... Old man, if we find some more people who claim to be from your family, what will you say?"
"No, absolutely not. No, absolutely not." The voice that answered was obviously lacking in confidence.
In Mr. Tian's opinion, the local head of the village and the head of the jia were called to a meeting, and they would not be back until one or two days later at the latest. At that time, they would still have to rely on the head of the village to check the population. And the local head of the village? Mr. Tian never paid any attention to them. It would not be too late to prepare in advance and hide the slaves and maids in the family when the time came: it was May now, and the crops in the fields needed people to serve them . The masters and young masters in the family were used to being served by others, and they could not let the slaves and maids go first... Anyway, when the news was confirmed, they could hide them for a few days temporarily.
Unfortunately, this time he encountered the time traveler's men.
Although Ma Zongqi had ridden horses and used guns in his early years, he was not familiar with the flintlock rifle after arriving at Henghaiwei. He was taken to Fangshan School for a month of intensive training: in the population census, all kinds of situations that might be encountered must be known in advance and how to deal with them.
This time, he and Zhang Wenhua worked together to conduct the census. The two discussed that the captain would go to the village to convene a meeting of the head of the village to attract firepower. He would lead the main force and sneak into each city and map with the help of a guide to conduct field investigations, which would prevent the head of the village from notifying the big households in various places.
In short, Mr. Tian's family was really caught off guard.
"Okay then." After hearing Mr. Tian's report, Ma Ran was not angry. He asked his students from Fangshan School to take out a few pieces of ordinary paper and quickly wrote down the total population of the Tian family. Then he asked each person's age and place of origin one by one. Then he carefully copied the above details onto special paper.
"Master Tian, this time when His Highness re-checks the population, he will really only check the number of people and nothing else. So, if Master Tian confirms that this double-copy household registration book is correct, will you please sign and seal it?"
Did you pass it so easily?
While I felt a sense of secret joy, I was also somewhat apprehensive: His Royal Highness had been so famous over the years, how come he suddenly became so approachable? Could it be that there was something strange about this new household registration?
After reading it carefully twice, I found that this household sticker is also divided into two parts. On the right is the imperial edict, which requires all personnel in the country to cooperate with the population census work, and all officials and citizens must report the population of their families truthfully. If there is any deception, they will be severely punished in accordance with the "Great Ming Law" and "Great Edict". After this paragraph, there is another sentence "I have understood the meaning of your highness's edict, actively cooperated with the subsequent filling work, and have never concealed or missed any report. If there is any violation, I am willing to be punished", and then there is a place for the head of the household to sign or stamp.
Of course, the middle of the household sticker also contains the name, age, gender, place of origin, and relationship with the head of the household of all the family members.
On the left side, the household head signs again or stamps his/her seal to confirm, as well as the signatures of the population enumerator, team leader or deputy team leader. After that, there are signatures of officials at all levels - this is the reserved space.
After repeated confirmation, Mr. Tian found that there were indeed only nine names in the center of the household label. All the details were written clearly without any flaws. The only difference from the previous household labels was that there was a string of numbers below each person's name.
"Uh, officer, may I ask what this string of numbers means?"
"Oh, this is the ID number invented by His Highness. Here, Mr. Tian, the first letter is 'W', which is the first letter of the two words Wanli in the Western alphabet. This means that our ID number was compiled during the Wanli period. The next one is '002'. Our Nanzhili was of course the first province in the Hongwu Dynasty. But now who asked the emperor to go to Beijing? Therefore, 001 is the code for Beizhili, and 002 is the code for Nanzhili. The '01' after 002 is of course Yingtianfu, and our Yingtianfu is the first prefecture in Nanzhili. The 08 after '01' is Gaochun County. Then there are 0302015, which represent The first is your hometown, capital, and map. Then comes your birthday, Mr. Tian. You were born in the first year of Longqing, which is the 199th year of the founding of the Ming Dynasty. Your birthday is August 18. So the next number is 01990818. Of course, you are a man, so we use 01 instead. Although our map is small, there may be people born on the same day as you, so there is another 1 after 01. In short, W0020108030201501990818011 is the only number that can represent you in the entire Ming Dynasty. From now on, at any time and anywhere, as long as we have this string of numbers, we can accurately identify an individual. "
Looking at the dumbfounded Master Tian, Ma Ran smiled slightly: "Of course, in addition to this household registration book, His Highness has ordered that each person should be issued an ID card. There are special requirements for the paper of this ID card. And it is very troublesome to make it. So we can't handle it on the spot. We have to take the original household registration book back and make it uniformly. In short, if Master Tian feels that the number of people in your household registration book is correct, please sign to confirm."
"Oh, OK, I'll sign it now."
He kept a gentle smile and watched Master Tian sign and seal the two copies of the household registration booklet. Then Ma Ran took the two copies of the household registration booklet in his hands. Ma Ran's face, which was originally very handsome but looked somewhat evil because of the piercing wound, suddenly became ferocious: "Master Tian, I had a hard time acting just now and almost couldn't hold it back. Now, I can finally act like myself!"
