Gu Qingyan had been taught from childhood that one should undertake tasks according to one's ability, and shelter as many people as one had strength to spare.
He said, "It is an established custom for officials, gentry, Jinshi scholars, and Juren scholars to shelter local villagers and take their land under their names."
"A common practice does not mean it is not wrong," Xue Shao said. "This is embezzling state revenue. Worse, it shifts the burden onto other villagers whose land is not sheltered. They must bear your taxes; a single mu of land may have to pay twenty percent more in taxes, or even more."
Pan Yun gave a soft laugh. "The Gu family enjoys an excellent reputation in the countryside. Even beyond this patch of heaven and earth, you are praised as great philanthropists. That is because the common people know only to pay the taxes assigned by the yamen runners. Many spend their entire lives unable to calculate exactly how much tax they owe, so naturally they do not know that part of the taxes they must sell their land, their homes, even their sons and daughters to pay belongs to the villagers sheltered by the Gu family."
"They may not know, but Heaven knows, Earth knows, and every clear-minded person in this world with a conscience knows. The Gu family is already entangled in karma, yet you still call it an established custom?"
Xue Shao said, "So-called established custom is nothing more than this: when the first person did wrong and was not stopped, those who came after saw him profit and followed suit. When two followed, then three gathered, it became an established custom."
Gu Qingyan's face flushed faintly as he defended himself. "My Gu family has not profited from this. That ten percent rent