"This young master has natural insight!" Upon hearing this question, Master Nan'an wore an expression of appreciation.
"Before I retired in seclusion at Fenggui Studio, I once traveled along both banks of Pengyu. Thousands of miles of fertile fields and boundless open wilderness, yet they cannot feed the farmers who work them! The fertile lands are mostly claimed by powerful clans, while the wild and untamed lands remain uncultivated—and the crux of the matter lies right here! Powerful clans collude with the government; before a crop has even been harvested from the fields, these clans come to seize it. With empty bellies, the farmers have no choice but to depend on one another, gathering together and concealing their household registrations. In the three prefectures of the Eastern Territory, to evade the poll tax and corvée labor, people of the same surname cluster together to live, and large clans numbering over a hundred members are everywhere. Investigating and sorting all this out is no easy task."
Hearing the conversation turn to this matter, and thinking of the debates in court between Li Tushan and Wei Xian, Yuchi Lan immediately understood what the old scholar was driving at.
Chapter 105