The World of Yellow Sky

Chapter 537 Changes
The Yellow Turban Army has occupied Bingzhou for two years. With the assistance of Yan Zhong, Yang Ji and others, the order of the entire Bingzhou has stabilized, and all aspects are also in order.

Industry and commerce have also made great progress, and the financial situation has also been improved. Now Xu An is no longer that poor guy who goes around hunting for rich people, looking for places to save money, and only thinking about how to copy a wave of rich and powerful families. Pauper.

In Bingzhou, the three items of salt, iron, and wine are monopolized, and special officials are dispatched to manage them.

"Despite the matter of salt, iron, wine and food in the world", the monopoly operation of salt, iron and wine trading is implemented.

As early as when Xu An first entered Bingzhou, the ban on alcohol was promulgated. At that time, Xu An needed to support the huge army of the Yellow Turban Army. He lacked clothing and food, and every grain must not be wasted. Therefore, the ban on alcohol must be promulgated naturally. .

Prohibition has little impact on ordinary people. Many people can't even afford to eat, so where do they get the extra money to drink?
Prohibition is more to form a restriction on those who are high-ranking and have more money, so that they cannot use food to brew alcohol.

However, the prohibition of alcohol only brought the authority of wine making, transporting and selling wine back to Taiping Road and under the management of the Secretary of Agriculture.

Today's Bingzhou is not as good as before. Due to the implementation of work-for-relief, a large number of infrastructure and water conservancy projects have been improved, and there is also a low agricultural tax, which also allows ordinary people to have a certain amount of money.

Wine making is very simple for the Yellow Turban Army. Now the Yellow Turban Army controls twelve counties, including the four mountains of Taiyue, Taihang, Wangwu, and Wushan.

These four mountains are not only rich in minerals, but also rich in forest resources. There are trees, many shrubs, and naturally there is no shortage of wild fruits.

The raw materials for wine making are directly collected by the local Yellow Turban garrison, and the wild fruits are purchased from households around the mountains and forests at a price.

As for transporting wine, the number of four-wheeled carriages of the Yellow Turban Army has reached an extremely considerable level, and now the roads in the major cities of the twelve counties controlled by the Yellow Turban Army have been repaired, allowing four-wheeled carriages pass.

The four-wheeled carriage can transport the most goods with the least manpower and material resources, and the cost of transportation is therefore greatly reduced, which has become a way to reduce costs.

Not to mention selling wine, the shops in the village pavilions and markets in the cities were almost all controlled by powerful families, but after the Eagle Wolf Guard wiped out a large number of powerful families, these shops were naturally confiscated , received for the public.

Even if Xu An rented out a large number of them at a relatively low price, there are still many shops left behind, which can be directly used as selling points.

After taking the monopoly of wine into public ownership, Fu Qi did not hide his secrets, and contributed the clan's secret recipe for wine making. The Fu family is a powerful force in Wuwei County, a place with a bitter cold in the northwest, and the demand for wine and water is quite high. big.

The Fu family was originally famous for brewing wine in Liangzhou. The brewed wine is mellow and fragrant, and the price is not high, so it is quite popular among ordinary people.

Of course, although the powerful families in Bingzhou have weakened a lot, they still have a demand for wine, so the Secretary of Agricultural Affairs has also developed some more expensive wines, which are divided into three grades for sale, and they have also made a lot of money.

As for the salt and iron, since Xu An took over Bingzhou, he has always controlled it in his own hands.

Needless to say about iron, the iron mines and workshops in various places are now under the control of Taipingdao itself. There are no folks or powerful families involved, so they are all owned by the government.

Now all the iron products in the twelve counties are sold by the Yellow Turban Army, which is also an important income for the Yellow Turban Army.

As for salt, in fact, since the Yellow Turban Army entered Bingzhou, salt can be said to be extremely scarce. There are not many salt mines controlled by the Yellow Turban Army, and they have always been in a state of salt shortage, barely maintaining it.

Even when the shortage was the most, Xu An still asked Zhang Ju to transport the sea salt from Youzhou from the grassland, which cost a lot of money.

Xu An attacked the southern area of ​​​​Hedong County when the people of the four states entered Bingzhou. It was obvious that they should cultivate their health and rest. Origin of salt mines.

After capturing the southern area of ​​Hedong County this time, Xu An immediately asked Guo Tai to send troops to occupy Yanchi, and immediately dispatched craftsmen to start drying salt in Yanchi and collecting salt mines.

Salt is an indispensable thing for people. Occupying the salt pond to the north of Wushan completely solved the current situation of the Yellow Turban Army's lack of salt, and added a part of their income.

Now Bingzhou has a population of [-] million, and the three franchises of salt, iron, and wine, as well as the collection of land tax and service money, the current financial situation of the Yellow Turban Army is quite surplus.

In addition to these five items of income, the Yellow Turban Army actually had another important income.

Mountains have mountain owners, and lakes have lake owners. In the past, mountains, rivers and lakes were basically occupied by powerful families. Of course, some of them were also owned by the emperor, or they were state-owned.

Now the twelve counties are controlled by the Yellow Turban Army, and the ownership of the mountains, rivers and lakes is naturally occupied by the Yellow Turban Army.

In fact, it is not free for private households to go to the mountains to cut firewood and collect medicinal materials. Whether it is fishing or entering the mountains, they have to pay a certain amount of money.

This part of the money, Xu An has not abolished it for the time being, nor has it improved. After all, the Yellow Turban Army really needs this part of the tax as a supplement to maintain a good financial situation.

The owner of the mountain and the lake have existed since ancient times, and they are all controlled by powerful noble families. Now the object of tax payment has changed, so the collection of this kind of tax will not arouse the disgust of the people.

In fact, the people under the jurisdiction of the Yellow Turban Army, including the people of the four states who traveled thousands of miles to Bingzhou, are now much richer than the people in Bingzhou.

In the past, when the powerful family controlled the place and the Han court controlled the city, all kinds of levies and miscellaneous taxes were heavy. In a good year, you can only survive. In a bad year, the family will be ruined. Saving money is undoubtedly a joke.

But now it is completely different. Under the rule of the Yellow Turban Army, the people have a lot of money. Today's Bingzhou is more prosperous than when the Han court controlled it, and the people's life is better than when the Han court controlled it. .

You don't have to worry about the sticks in the hands of the tax collectors, and you don't need to be afraid of the bullies who run amok in the countryside, let alone being oppressed by powerful families and occupying the land.

At the beginning, Xu An made a promise to Yu Du in the Taihang Mountains, that those who till it will have their fields, those who live in them will have their houses, and those who work in them will have their property.

In the first two sentences, the place controlled by the Yellow Turban Army has actually done it. There are people who suffer from the cold, but the hungry are under the jurisdiction of the Yellow Turban Army. As long as you are willing to work, you will definitely have a full meal.

In the Eastern Han Dynasty, there were about [-] million mu of arable land in the whole country, and one mu of ordinary arable land could produce three grains of millet, with an annual output of about [-] billion grains.

In the Eastern Han Dynasty, before the outbreak of the Yellow Turban Rebellion, the population was about [-] million. Even according to the standard of ten shi for one person a year, it was only [-] million shi, and the remaining [-] billion shi of food was more than enough.

In fact, how could the peasants in the Han Dynasty only eat corn as the staple food? They didn’t have that much food to eat. They often mixed wild vegetables, and sometimes they even had a meal when they were hungry. But that’s it, after the famine The year is still going to ruin the family.

Although the arable land is not all planted with staple food, including transportation, storage, and various consumption, the total output may not be that much, but the main reason why farmers are poor is exorbitant taxes and heavy corvee.

Most of the output was taken away by powerful families and the imperial court, while ordinary households could only get the output that could barely survive.

But after the Yellow Turban Army came, it changed this situation.

Because of this, how can the people of Bingzhou oppose the Yellow Turban Army now? In a sense, the area controlled by Xu An today, compared to other places in the world, can indeed be called the world of Huang Tian.

Financial issues are no longer a problem.

The wealth of finances and manpower has also greatly increased the output of weapons produced by workshops in various places.

In the first month of the first year of Chuping, Liu Pi, commander of the Eagle Wolf Guard, led hundreds of Tiqi from the Eagle Wolf Guard into the Taihang Mountains.

And the yellow angel who has been serving as the guard of Xu An also handed over the task of guard to "Teng Xiangwei", and followed Liu Pi into the Taihang Mountains.

Under the leadership of the head of the Eagle Wolf Guard, the six gates, Zhou Jing, stationed on the outskirts of the Taihang Mountain. The task they received was to prohibit the entry and exit of personnel from various workshops in the Taihang Mountain. Anyone who violated it would be killed on the spot.

At the same time, a large number of Tiqi from the Eagle Wolf Guard were also mobilized to lead the Jianghu people from the six doors and guard the periphery.

There was even a battalion of soldiers who were transferred to the outskirts of workshops in various parts of the Taihang Mountains.

All the military equipment workshops in Taihang Mountain changed from a semi-closed state to a fully closed state when Liu Pi entered Taihang Mountain.

Craftsmen in all workshops are not allowed to leave the workshop, and outsiders are not allowed to enter the workshop.

No one knows why Liu Pi entered Taihang Mountain, nor why he closed all the workshops.

But everyone knows that something extraordinary will be born from the workshop in this Taihang Mountain, which is dozens or even a hundred times more important than the previous "Thunderbolt Chariot" and "Four-Wheeled Carriage" thing.

From the inside to the outside, the three checkpoints of the Yellow Angel, the Eagle Wolf Guard, and the army are enough to see the importance of the matter.

The transfer of the Yellow Turban Army naturally attracted the attention of many forces.

It didn't take long for Yuan Shao, Liu Yu, Sun Jian, Dong Zhuo, Han Sui and others to know the abnormal behavior of the Yellow Turban Army.

Although the eagle and wolf guards controlled most of the places, there were always some places where people were lurking.

The Embroidered Clothes Envoy was disbanded, and the remaining forces either defected to the princes in various places, or hid underground and did not dare to show their faces.

Dead or scattered, the embroidered messengers who had been suppressing the Eagle Wolf Guard all this time fell apart overnight.

In a sense, Xu An would also like to thank those greedy aristocratic families, because it was their greed and ambition that helped Xu An get rid of the embroidered clothes envoy, which was a serious problem in his heart.

But the centipede is dead but not stiff.

Some of the embroidered clothes messengers were gathered again by Liu Xie and led by Wang Yue. Although they could only hide in the dark for various reasons and could not appear in the open, their strength should not be underestimated.

Dong Zhuo had Xuan Tingwei under Dong Zhuo's command. Dong Zhuo wanted to eradicate the embroidered clothes messenger at first, but Li Ru saw the role of the embroidered clothes messenger, so he advised Dong Zhuo to keep the embroidered clothes messenger for his own use.

So after Dong Zhuo eliminated some of the diehards among the embroidered clothes messengers, he secretly formed an organization called Xuantingwei.

Xuan Tingwei directly belonged to Dong Zhuo, and almost inherited all the rights of the Embroidered Emissary. Like the Embroidered Emissary controlled by Liu Xie, it was not put on the bright side like Xu An's Eagle Wolf Guard.

They are not the Yellow Turban Army, they have to consider the attitude of those powerful families.

Not long ago, the Eagle Wolf Guard also delivered a message to Xu An.

Today, the Eagle Wolf Guard's activities in Youzhou and Jizhou are hardly hindered.

Yan Liang and Wen Chou occupied Gaonu and the six northern cities of Zhongshan. Because of the propaganda of the Eagle Wolf Guard, many refugees went north to the Yellow Turbans after they learned about the low taxes of Taiping Road, and even the entire settlement fled together. things happen.

Yuan Shao is secretly gathering the surviving embroidered clothes messengers in Jizhou and Yanzhou, and establishing an organization similar to the embroidered clothes messengers. The name of that organization seems to be "wǎng liǎng" (wǎng liǎng).

The appearance of the Embroidered Clothes Envoy and the Eagle Wolf Guard made the princes see the horror of the spy agency, and Yuan Shao was one of them.

Moreover, not only Yuan Shao, it seems that Han Sui also made a move, recruiting some embroidered envoys who opposed Dong Zhuo for his own use, and secretly set up a hidden guard.

If these known organizations are ranked according to their strength, the Eagle Wolf Guard ranks first, followed by the Embroidered Clothes Envoy, Xuan Ting Guard, Monster, and Dark Guard.

However, there must be more than these three organizations like the Eagle Wolf Guard.

Dong Zhuo took control of the government and abolished the embroidered emissaries. At that time, most of the embroidered emissaries chose to belong to the state shepherds, governors, or prefects of counties in order to protect themselves, and went underground from the public.

Few of these princes who can control a state and a place are mediocre.

Xu An has reason to believe that these organizations can pose a certain amount of threat to the Yellow Turban Army.

The reason why Xu An mobilized so many troops and made such a big commotion this time is that the papermaking workshop in Taihang Mountain almost leaked.

The wolf guards of Taihang Mountain captured a spy on the east side of Taihang Xing. When the spy was caught, he bit up the poison on the spot and took poison to commit suicide.

Afterwards, Eagle Wolf Guards found a blueprint of some counterweight catapults on the spy, which was quite clear, but it was not a structural drawing, and the drawing from a distance seemed to be someone looking at it from a distance. The shape of the catapult is then drawn.

It was the reason for the leakage of the drawings that made Xu An strengthen the defense of the secret workshop again.

The weapons produced in this workshop are crucial to the Battle of Liangzhou and the key to quickly defeating Han Sui and Ma Teng. It is absolutely impossible to leak any news, otherwise it is very likely that the success will fall short and the goal will not be achieved.

　Posting so late today is my problem.

　　One day last month, I made the VIP chapter free, but the result does not count the full attendance.

　　The author's mentality exploded, and he was autistic for almost a whole day.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)