Chapter 447: Seeking Trouble for Oneself_1
After August, the county government began collecting taxes from various villages.
Wei Zhan sent people to accompany the low-ranking Xiang Zhi officials collecting these taxes, recording how much grain each household turned in.
Zhouhe County had a total of twelve townships, each township having about a dozen villages, with each village supposed to consist of at least ten households.
However, some villages had sparse populations, some even lacking ten households.
Something was clearly off.
Wei Zhan relayed all this information to Yingbao: "Many people in this county are evading their land taxes, with the majority of resources concentrated in the hands of government officials and wealthy gentry. They even register their high-class farms as lower-class farms and asses households that own multiple courtyards as fourth-class villagers."
These fourth or fifth-class villagers pay much less in taxes, hence the gentry colludes with officials to maintain their lower ratings.