Mo Yan had not expected Zhao Dafu to co forward and openly confess to embezzlent, revealing every detail of the events from start to finish.
What surprised Mo Yan even more was that Zhao Dafu’s embezzlent was actually out of reluctance, forced upon by the tenants of Chen Family Village, and that the duration of his embezzlent was not as long as she had suspected.
This affair dates back ten years. A decade ago, a moderate drought struck the area around Jing City. Although it wasn’t severe enough to cause starvation, the crops significantly underproduced, so even failing entirely. At that ti, the Court issued tax relief so that the disaster-stricken citizens could still get by.
Back then, the dozens of families that were tenants of the farmland of Chen Family Village also suffered from the disaster. With little to no harvest to speak of, they would be left with an empty stomach after paying their rent. These tenants had no choice but to turn to Zhao Dafu, hoping he could plead with the owner of the estate, the corrupt official who was executed so years back, to reduce the rent.
Zhao Dafu, not being a man with a heart of stone, agreed to plead on their behalf. However, as a re manager on the estate, he wasn’t qualified to et with the master in the main house in the city and could only convey the ssage of reducing the rent through the head manager. In the end, whether it was due to the corrupt master’s hardness of heart, or the head manager wanting to take his cut, they flatly refused to reduce the rent.
This matter, being about the belly, was sothing the tenants deeply resented, especially when they heard that other landlords had reduced or even forgiven their tenants’ rents outright. This dissatisfaction peaked when the tenants got together and collectively refused to pay the rent.
Zhao Dafu, left with no choice, would be blad for ineffectiveness as the manager if the rent was unpaid. Not only would his family suffer, but he couldn’t bear the responsibility. Thus, he gathered the tenants, hoping to convince them to pay the rent on ti and in full, but sadly, even invoking the na of the corrupt official could not sway them.
After a stalemate of several days, when the deadline to pay the rent finally arrived, Zhao Dafu almost knelt before the tenants, who then "grudgingly" agreed to pay. However, the rent had to be paid according to the new standards they set.
These tenants decided the rent should be based on seventy percent of the harvest, with the rent still at sixty percent, leaving the remaining thirty percent to be split amongst them, a large portion being their share and a smaller part going to Zhao Dafu. With the harvests widely reduced during the drought years and amounts being variable, couldn’t they just claim any amount they wanted?
In the end, Zhao Dafu needed only to deceive the manager from above when collecting the harvest, assuring that no one would notice the concealed thirty percent of grains.
Zhao Dafu, though unwilling, found himself caught in a difficult position. Choosing the lesser of two evils, he thought through the night and eventually agreed to help the tenants deceive the collecting manager.
The manager who ca to collect the harvest had no idea of Zhao Dafu’s "betrayal." After weighing and seeing the shortage in the rent, he assud the reduction in harvest was severe and did not suspect anything. From that incident, Zhao Dafu also reaped a considerable benefit, making thirty taels of silver by selling his portion of the grain, equivalent to his family’s total annual inco.
However, what Zhao Dafu had not anticipated was that the tenants, having tasted the sweetness of their sche, were not satisfied with just one year’s deceit. The following year, they employed the sa tactics again, offering Zhao Dafu a share to help cover up their actions.
Zhao Dafu was unwilling to "sink to their level," but the tenants weren’t fools either. They directly used his embezzlent from the previous year to threaten him. Left with no choice and feeling in his heart that his master would not miss that bit of silver, and since he too benefited, it didn’t take long for him to compromise.
That compromise lasted ten long years, even as the ownership of the estate changed to the Court, it wasn’t enough to stop the tenants. Fortunately, the tenants knew not to be too greedy as it would raise suspicions. Thus, in years of good harvest, they dared to withhold only ten or five percent. But in reality, even ten percent in a bountiful year was slightly more than the thirty percent from a year of famine.
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