Chu Qiguang had already heard about how the wardens of the village had been scrambling to collect wheat over the past few days, targeting the poorest and most vulnerable people in the village.

Ever since Ergou's father and older brother disappeared while gathering firewood in the mountains, the only people left in the household were Ergou, his mother, and his sister, making them an easy target in the eyes of certain people in the village.

Steward Wang was furious. He jabbed a finger at Chu Qiguang and snapped, "Who the hell do you think you are?! The authority of the county office is absolute! Are you trying to get everyone in the village killed?!"

Chu Qiguang knew that there was truth behind Steward Wang's threat, and he also knew where Steward Wang was receiving his backing from.

As someone who greatly enjoyed life, he had naturally spent the past five days thinking of ways to improve his situation. However, before making any moves, he knew he first had to understand the power structure of this place.

Based on Ergou's memories and the information Chu Qiguang had gathered, the regulations of the Great Han Empire stipulated that each county office presided over the county town and all villages that fell within its administrative region. The Wang Clan Village and the surrounding villages were under the jurisdiction of Azure Sun County.

There were three categories of employees in the Azure Sun County Office: officials, minor officials, and servants. According to Chu Qiguang's memory, this was a very similar structure to that of the county offices in the Ming Dynasty back on Earth.

The highest-ranking official was the county magistrate, and directly below him were the assistant county magistrate and the official registrar, forming the most powerful trio in the county office. Minor officials included the superintendent and those working in the six ministries.

The superintendent was the equivalent of the police chief in modern times, while the six ministries consisted of the ministries of rites, personnel, revenue, works, war, and justice, with each playing a different role in the county office.

As for servants, they were people who had been conscripted into forced labor in the county office. They consisted of the attendants, who were responsible for entertaining guests and overseeing ceremonial affairs, the enforcers, who maintained law and order, and the officers, who were responsible for capturing criminals and delivering documents.

In addition, there were also storekeepers, custodians, horsemen, and many others, all of whom performed miscellaneous jobs in the county office. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

The three officials were at the top, presiding over the dozens of minor officials, while the hundreds of servants were at the very bottom. They formed a hierarchy of authority that ruled over the entire population of Azure Sun County, which numbered more than a hundred thousand.

The top officials held immense power, but they only served terms of several years before being transferred elsewhere, and no local residents could hold those positions. The minor officials were outside the established system, so it was very difficult for them to earn promotions, and their salaries weren't counted as part of national finances. However, there were ways for these positions to be passed down to their descendants.

The records on taxation and forced labor were kept by the scribes of the six ministries, so a scribe could easily mark a plot of infertile farmland as fertile or record an underage boy as a young man in his prime. That way, the household's tax burden would be increased significantly, eventually driving them to ruin.

These minor officials and official servants had been here for generations, forming complex networks of connections. They were the ones tasked with carrying out the orders of the county office, and without their cooperation, even the county magistrate's orders could be completely ignored.

If a wealthy clan were to join forces with corrupt minor officials, then there would be many ways for them to evade taxes and avoid forced labor. For example, tens of thousands of acres of fertile farmland could be erased from official records, while the poor were forced to shoulder the burden of their rightful tax contributions. In this way, official farmland could be turned into private farmland, and vice versa.

A village tycoon like the leader of the Wang Clan had clearly already been colluding with the minor officials and official servants of the county office to exploit the people for many years.

After piecing all of this together, Chu Qiguang realized something, The county office structure of the Great Han Empire is very similar to that of the Ming Dynasty, and they're even using the same collusion tactics to work together and exploit the people... Could it be that this is a parallel world to Earth?

Second clue: If recycle is to recyclable, and oratory is to laboratory, then coloration is to...

In the face of Steward Wang's condemnation, Chu Qiguang remained composed as he rebuked, "Why should we be made to compensate for the tax and forced labor evasion of the affluent clans in the village? You should be the ones to pay for yourselves."

"Are you just going to let your son run his mouth like this? Do you hear the nonsense that's coming out of his mouth?" Aunt Chen asked frantically as she turned to Ergou's mother.

Ergou's mother stepped forward to shield him, then lowered her head and said quietly, "What Ergou is saying isn't completely unreasonable."

"Nonsense!" Steward Wang spat coldly. "If my master hadn't been buying up everyone's land over the years out of the kindness of his heart, all of you would've already been detained by the county, had your land seized, then banished to some godforsaken place!"

With that, Steward Wang turned and stormed out of the room with the two servants.

The warden also stood up, then turned to Ergou's mother and warned, "The county office is still waiting for a response. There's only a month left until the deadline. If we don't manage to submit enough grain tax by then, everyone's going to suffer!"

With Steward Wang and the warden preparing to leave, Ergou's mother panicked again.

Aunt Chen continued to pile on the pressure with a threat veiled as a warning. "If we don't submit the required quota of grain tax, the entire village is going to be implicated, and everyone will know that you're the one to blame!"

"Let the county come and investigate all they want!" Chu Qiguang scoffed, his condition improving with every word that came out of his mouth. "Let them find out who’s really to blame!"

The warden shot Chu Qiguang a cold glare, then pointed an enraged finger at him and snarled, "If you keep this up, you're going to screw over everyone in the entire village!"

***

After everyone had left, Ergou's mother turned to Chu Qiguang with a worried expression and asked, "Ergou, what're we going to do if this gets reported to the county office?"

"Don't worry, Mother, the county office won't hear a word about this," Chu Qiguang reassured as he gave her a pat on the shoulder. "The Wang Clan has falsified more census and farmland records than anyone else in the village, and they've also evaded more tax than anyone else. There are no xiucai in their clan, and certainly no juren.[1]

“They’ve only managed to get away with it by intimidating everyone in the village and relying on their connections with the minor officials in the county office. Even if we don't pay the grain tax that they're demanding from us, they'll make up the difference. There's no way they would dare to escalate this matter to the new county magistrate.

“If that happens, they'll have to spend a huge amount of money bribing the county magistrate, far more than they'll be able to extort from us. The Wang Clan is too stingy to make that investment, so they'll definitely resolve this matter in the village."

Ergou's mother wasn't looking any less concerned as she countered, "But there's no way the Wang Clan would let us off the hook for this."

"It's fine, leave it to me," Chu Qiguang assured with a confident smile.

As he watched Steward Wang and the others leave, Chu Qiguang felt reinvigorated. That suffocating sense of agitation and depression had completely vanished. He was no longer sweating, his legs had stopped trembling, and all of the symptoms of his condition had disappeared without a trace.

Despite this, Chu Qiguang was feeling rather frustrated.

He had just suffered another episode of positive-regard dependent personality disorder, a mental disorder that was completely unique to him. Whenever this disorder flared up, he would be tormented by immense discomfort unless he showed off to someone or dished out punishment to people that he despised.

1. A xiucai is a scholar who has passed a low-level imperial examination, while a juren is a scholar who has passed a provincial level imperial examination. ☜