Second Year of Kaiping.
Spring.
Xu Prefecture, Great Melody Prefecture.
As the Imperial Academy officials transferred from the south fully staffed the various prefectures and counties, Aaron's will was rigorously carried out throughout the region.
Land surveys, religious taxes, commercial taxes, officials and gentry paying grain taxes alike...
At the city gates, another official notice was posted, while yamen runners walked the streets and alleys beating copper gongs to announce it.
Clang! Clang!
"By order of the King of Liang: Great Peace Temple, Dragon Son Temple, and Goddess of Childbearing Temple are all licentious shrines... They are to be destroyed!"
"The East Gate Family resisted the land survey—their entire clan shall be exterminated!"
"The Kong Family evaded taxes—confiscate their property!"
Amid the uproar, a window was shut. "Heh... These Imperial Academy students from the south are all capable officials, it seems. That leaves people like us useless."
The speaker was an old clerk, formerly a copyist in the Revenue Office of Great Melody Prefecture.
Though he was only a clerk, such positions were in fact passed down from generation to generation. Even the government itself did not know exactly how many people or how much land lay under its rule. To collect taxes, it had to rely on him—or rather, on the hereditary "Yellow Registers" and "Land Registers" kept by his family.
Once they controlled such things, clerks passed their power from father to son and son to grandson. Their influence ran deep, and in collusion with local powerful clans and wealthy households, they wielded a terrifying degree of authority.
"Yan Er, you only dare say that now. Before this, you knelt faster than anyone!"
Another dark, iron-built man gave a cold laugh. "But there was no choice but to kneel. In the other prefectures and counties, people like