Ethan Grant immediately searched his mind for information on this topic.

Suddenly, three words popped into his head—Equal-field system.

Because the Tang Dynasty had only recently been established, the population was sparse but there was plenty of land. The territory of the Tang was quite vast, and in order to promote agriculture, the court implemented the equal-field system.

The equal-field system, as the name suggests, meant the equal distribution of land. It was a method to prevent land annexation.

The official policy was that anyone over eighteen would receive eighty mu of “koufen” land and twenty mu of “yongye” land. “Koufen” land belonged to the court—when a person died, the land returned to the state. “Yongye” land was private property, which could be passed down to descendants and freely bought or sold.

Of course, that was just the official line—people generally just listened and didn’t take it too seriously.

In reality, things were different. In rural areas with more land and fewer people, each person could get a hundred mu. But in places with less land and more people, there wasn’t that much to go around. For example, in the Guanlong region, where the population was dense and all the great clans were concentrated, each family owned thousands of mu of good land. As a result, each adult male could only get thirty mu, and there was no “yongye” land at all, because aside from the land owned by the court, almost all the land there was in the hands of the Guanlong nobility.

Although Yangzhou couldn’t compare to the Guanlong region, its population was also very large—it counted as a big city. So in Yangzhou, each adult male could only get forty mu of land, and this land belonged to the court; you could only farm it, not buy or sell it.

Actually, no matter what, the land in the hands of the common people could never be much, no matter how much idle land there was. Because if every commoner had a hundred mu of land, who would work for the landlords? Wouldn’t everyone become a farmer? That wouldn’t make sense. They’d rather let the land lie idle than give the people even one extra mu. That was the landlords’ mentality, and it’s also why land annexation couldn’t be stopped throughout history. It wasn’t that there wasn’t enough land, but that there weren’t enough people. Without slaves, how could there be landlords?

In fact, The Grant Family originally had twenty mu of hereditary land, passed down from their ancestors, but during the Zhenguan era, it was annexed by those big landlords. Although the court opposed land annexation, it was useless—what was meant to be annexed was annexed anyway. It was said that the twenty mu of land The Miller Family rented to The Grant Family had originally been The Grant Family’s ancestral property.

And Ethan Grant was not yet eighteen—he still had more than half a year to go before he turned eighteen, so he hadn’t been granted any land yet. In such special cases, the authorities would handle it at their discretion, and in the end, Ethan Grant would still be granted land. But the problem was, with the way the government worked, it would take at least half a year. Besides, the autumn harvest was coming, and even if you were given land now, you couldn’t do much with it. Most likely, it wouldn’t be distributed until the end of this winter.

Simply put, a heavy rain had left The Grant Family utterly destitute.

Who could be worse off than me!

Ethan Grant cried out in his heart.

Compete in misery!

Right now, Ethan Grant truly wasn’t afraid of anyone—he had to be the champion.

But that was reality: the common people were always the ones enslaved, because all the rules were made by the powerful.

Although Ethan Grant felt cold and hopeless inside, his face remained calm, as if Mount Tai could collapse before him and he wouldn’t bat an eye. This was the basic quality of a con artist—never let anyone know what you’re really thinking. He snorted, “Even so, so what? You want to collect the debt? Fine, come back when it’s time to repay.”

Paul Miller sneered, “What if you run away? Now you have nothing left—it’s very likely you’ll skip town.”

As a loan shark, he had his reasons for coming to collect early. The original IOU stated that the debt would be repaid with grain after the autumn harvest, but now The Grant Family’s grain had all been washed away. Anyone with a sense of responsibility would come to collect the debt early—what if the other party ran off? So when Paul Miller heard that The Grant Family’s fields had been destroyed by the flood, he was overjoyed and rushed over with his men.

Is this guy an idiot? Would I—wait—uh… running away actually sounds like a pretty good option. After all, I do like a wandering lifestyle. Although Ethan Grant was thinking this, he said, “In that case, can I accuse you of murder?”

Paul Miller shouted, “On what grounds?”

“Just on the grounds of tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“What if you kill me tomorrow?”

“Stop making baseless accusations! Why would I kill you?”

“How should I know? I’m just saying what if. Oh, you can say what if I run away tomorrow, but I can’t say what if you kill me tomorrow? That’s just bullying!”

“I—I—you—”

Paul Miller’s chubby face turned red with frustration.

Ethan Grant suddenly put a hand on Old Parker’s shoulder and said, “Besides, there’s Old Parker here as a witness. If you don’t trust me, you should at least trust Old Parker, right?”

Paul Miller glared at Walter Parker with a hint of threat, “Old Parker, are you going to vouch for him?”

The witness was only responsible for the authenticity of the IOU, but a guarantor would have to share the debt—those were two different things.

“Huh?”

Walter Parker looked a bit bewildered, completely not understanding what they were talking about. Of course, he also ignored Paul Miller’s threat—being a bookworm, he didn’t even know what a threat was.