Chapter 2557 - 2531: Landlords and Tenant Farmers

The Ministry of Personnel’s exam only took half a day. Bai Erlang finished the exam today and got his results the very next day. Among the twenty-some successful candidates, he was neither at the top nor at the bottom; his ranking was decent.

But unlike Bai Dalang, who hurried off to wait for his appointment, after getting his results Bai Erlang did not go to the Ministry of Personnel. Instead, he ran home to find Mingda and dragged her out to the imperial estate.

If he went to line up for office selection now, and his father-in-law suddenly bestowed an appointment on him, should he report to duty immediately, or delay a couple of days?

So he was in no rush to wait for his appointment; he decided to rest a few days first.

From last year until now, he had been busy without a break. Even on the rare occasions he could go out and play, he did so with his heart in his throat and could not relax completely.

Mingda could recognize the five grains, had even scattered seed with her own hands, and had watched people farm, but her understanding of agriculture only stayed at the surface.

Unlike Bai Erlang, who had been managing an estate since childhood.

So he pulled Mingda along to stay at the imperial estate for two days, walked all around, and learned that on this large imperial estate there were only sixty-eight tenant households and twenty-nine servants...

And every year, Liyang County would assign a labor conscript team from one li to come help with spring plowing and autumn harvest. The villages under the county took turns, so they could go several years without repeating.

Bai Erlang said to Mingda, "Zhou Man’s allotted official fields in Pu Village recruited tenants from an entire li, a full hundred households. Because the land is limited, they can afford to cultivate carefully. But with an estate as large as yours and only this few people, they basically just scatter the seeds, apply a bit of fertilizer; let alone watering, I’m afraid they don’t even weed. After two months, the weeds might grow better than the wheat."

Mingda suddenly understood. "No wonder the wheat field I saw last time was sparser than the weeds next door."

Bai Erlang held back his laughter and said, "The number of people is far too small, and the soil is different too. There’s also last year’s snow disaster as a factor."

"But whatever the reason, for such a large imperial estate to have only this many people is far from enough," he said. "Farming isn’t just about sowing the seeds. The daily work is very important too."

Bai Erlang felt he roughly understood why the Emperor owned so much land yet was still so poor.

He said, "Every year the imperial estate gets a hundred labor conscripts for free, but they only work ten days in spring plowing and ten days in autumn harvest. What about that long stretch of time in between?"

"The seeds you sow need fertilizing, watering, weeding, and even pest control. Take beans, for example: after sowing you have to weed at least twice. Otherwise the weeds that sprout later will steal the soil’s nutrients and grow better than the beans."

Bai Erlang said, "So relying on conscripted labor won’t work. You still have to recruit long-term workers or tenants."

Mingda tilted her head and thought for a bit, then asked curiously, "Why can’t the imperial estate recruit tenants?"

Bai Erlang said, "Because your terms are too black."

Mingda: ...

Bai Erlang said, "Do you know how much rent and tax an ordinary household pays in a year?"

Mingda smiled and said, "Each adult male pays two shi of millet a year."

Bai Erlang nodded and said, "That tax isn’t high. Compared to the land they receive, it’s about a rate of one tax in forty. But tenants who rent land from others usually have to hand over forty to sixty percent of their harvest as rent."

Mingda calculated the difference between the two and was shocked. "How could there be such a big gap?"

Bai Erlang said, "Private individuals are not the state, after all. From ancient times to now, rents charged to tenants have always been that high. There are harsh households that raise rents to seventy percent too."

"However, to ensure a good harvest, landlords usually provide good seed, farm tools, and some draft cattle. But there are also stingy households who provide none of these, and in the end the tenants leave, preferring to become vagrants rather than farm the land." Bai Erlang looked at Mingda and said, "Didn’t we just ask? The imperial estate’s rent share has always been sixty percent."

Mingda: ... So her family counted as a harsh household?

She asked, "How much rent share does your family charge its tenants?"

"It depends. Sometimes fifty percent, sometimes forty percent. The lowest we’ve taken was twenty percent. If we encounter a major disaster, we have to waive rent." Bai Erlang had once planned to inherit his father’s land and be a small landlord; plus now that he had passed the exam, he understood these matters well. He said, "The rent and tax the tenant should pay to the court is handed over by the landlord, unless the tenant separately has household-allotted land, in which case the taxes are split proportionally."

"In my family’s case, in the tenth year of Great Zhen, floods were rampant. My father waived the rent for many households, but their required two shi of tax per adult still had to be paid by my father. That was a loss."

That year Old Master Bai lost quite a bit. If a tenant had no household land and only rented the landlord’s fields, he only needed to perform corvée for the state; the rest of the rent and various taxes were all paid by the landlord.

Normally, landlords would set aside plots for tenants to grow mulberry and hemp, for them to spin thread and weave cloth. They would hand over a portion according to the agreed rent, and the rest was theirs.

When the court collected taxes, the landlord would submit the tenants’ rents and taxes together to the County Governmental Office. So in that year, not only did Old Master Bai have to pay the tenants’ taxes out of his own pocket, he also had to reach into his purse to provide relief for them, and on top of that he lost that year’s seed grain...

Of course, the reason Bai Erlang said all this was to tell Mingda, "Although Mianzhou has few people, when our family wants to recruit tenants, we can always fill our quota. Even if there’s no one left in Mianzhou, people from elsewhere will deliberately rush over."

Mingda was thoughtful. "You mean you think our imperial estate isn’t lenient enough, so we can’t recruit enough tenants?"

Bai Erlang nodded without euphemism and said to her, "The capital is wealthy, but there are plenty of landless people here too. As long as you offer enough benefit, it isn’t hard to recruit people."

He said, "Our family isn’t short of money. Even if the initial investment is large, with such good land, as long as you cultivate carefully, the harvest definitely won’t be low. Even if you only take forty percent, the annual income will still be considerable."

You only had to look at the returns from Zhou Man’s official fields over the last two years.

Mingda became interested, her eyes sparkling as she said, "All right, we’ll manage this imperial estate ourselves."

She even discussed with Bai Erlang, "Should we replace the steward?"

Clever as she was, Mingda naturally knew that all the shady dealings on the imperial estate were because of the steward.

Bai Erlang also wanted to replace him, but he felt that changing people was a big matter and he was a bit uncertain, so he went back to ask Bai Shan and Zhou Man.

Bai Shan said, "As long as he’s obedient, there’s no need to replace him."

He said, "He’s been managing the imperial estate for many years and is familiar with all the land and people there, and he can keep them in line. There’s no need to care how he used to run things. Now he only has to listen to you—no, to the Princess."

As long as Princess Mingda told him what to do and he did it, he could be used.

Manbao said, "Even if you want to replace him, wait until after spring plowing. Right now is not a good time to change stewards for so much land."

Bai Erlang was reassured, and after breathing out a sigh of relief, he asked Manbao, "With so much land, where am I supposed to recruit workers and find tenants?"

Manbao felt that it was already late to look for tenants now. For such good land, they had to find diligent people. What if they recruited lazy households?

So she said, "Spend a bit more and directly hire long-term or short-term laborers. There are plenty of idle people in the capital anyway. These people shouldn’t be hard to find."

Bai Shan said, "It’s a pity Fourth Brother is away; otherwise we could ask him for help. But the imperial estate’s steward should have some familiar runners. If you post announcements in both the capital and Yongzhou, you’ll definitely be able to hire quite a few people."