Was Zhang Juzheng Xu Jie's student? At a time like this, he still had to defend Xu Jie. No matter what, he could not agree to investigate the landholdings of Xu Jie's family.
Wang Yan had been harping on this matter for three years. Whenever he attended a major meeting with Xu Jie, he would shout about investigating Xu Jie's family landholdings, only to be opposed by everyone else.
The land and population audit in Songjiang Prefecture had thus become little more than window dressing, never carried out as thoroughly as it had been elsewhere. Even the hometowns of everyone present—Zhang Juzheng, Gao Gong, and Chen Yiqin—had not undergone a complete audit.
Of course, as the highest leadership of Great Ming, they had to set an example. The audited land and population figures were certainly higher than before. But they were absolutely not accurate figures, which was why it could not be called a complete audit.
When it came down to it, they all had large extended families, and their views on such matters varied greatly. Wang Yan had simply been too forceful, and they feared he would keep hounding them, so they reluctantly gave up a little here and there. Even then, they felt wronged. What more did you want from them?
They knew right from wrong, yet treated wrong as right until they no longer knew the difference. Whatever benefited themselves was right; whatever did not was wrong. That was the ruling class's vile disease.
Then again, the ruled classes were not much better. They simply did not hold power. A considerable number of them played rogues, cut corners, feigned deafness and blindness, shirked responsibility—their loathsome faces were not much prettier than those of officials...
The atmosphere in the room was tense. The other clerks working in Wenyuan