Great Warriors of Sui and Tang Dynasties

Chapter 1295

"Why are you so nice to slaves?"

On the official road by the Jishui River, the prince rode a horse and followed his father, and couldn't help asking.

"Because they are not animals but human beings, and human beings have thoughts." Luo Cheng replied to his son.

"But the slave law is better than livestock. Isn't this stipulated by the Great Qin Kaiyuan Law?"

"It is indeed a law than livestock, but slaves are not livestock. Although they work like livestock and serve people, they will think, and if they are oppressed and unbearable, they will rise up and resist." Luo Cheng pointed The fields on both sides of the road, "Prince, what do you think of when you look at the field in front of you and the village in the distance?"

The straight and flat official road is more than three feet wide, with rows of willow trees on the side of the road and connected by ditches under the road.The road is connected by rice fields, and the smoke from cooking is curling up in the distance.

"Father, what my son sees is the prosperity of the country and the people under the rule of the father, and what he sees is that the people live and work in peace and contentment."

Luo Cheng just shook his head.

"I have walked this road many times. I remember that the first time I walked this road was more than ten years ago. At that time, I was 16 years old, and I was recruited by the government to dig a canal in Ji County on the north bank of the Yellow River. The third uncle and I from the same village and I came along the road with dry rations and blankets. At that time, I was in a panic. There are also potholes, there are not so many trees on the roadside, the canals are in disrepair, even many fields have been abandoned because no one cultivated them, and many villages have been emptied due to desertion.”

"On the side of the road, you can even see dead bodies emitting stench and maggots at any time."

"More than a year later, I passed this road again. At that time, I was no longer a peasant who dug a river, but a captain of the Zhangqiu Township Regiment. Banditry, many of them are fleeing civilians. They couldn’t survive in their hometown, so they left their hometown with their families to beg for food, but food was not so easy to ask for. When they were hungry, they simply went to the mountains to fall grass. It’s so easy, if someone becomes a bandit, the imperial court will naturally suppress the bandits and catch the thieves.”

Speaking of that past, Luo Cheng also sighed.

"At that time, the Central Plains was in chaos, and the people were struggling to survive. The government recruited the people to serve every day, and all kinds of levies were added. Excessive taxes are as fierce as tigers, slaves are as cruel as wolves, good people become vicious bandits, and they turn around and harm the people. , the people are in dire straits."

Speaking of that time, there were unburied corpses everywhere on the roadside.

There are abandoned fields and abandoned villages everywhere.

If you don't go in a team, you don't dare to go out at all.

"Emperor Sui was brutal and fatuous," said the crown prince.

Luo Cheng smiled.

"Father is telling you this now, not to evaluate the Sui Emperor, but to tell you that the people are water, and the king is a boat. Water can carry a boat or overturn it. The same people, Sui Wendi Yang Jian treated the people fairly generously , so there was a prosperous age of the first emperor. As for Yang Jian, he was so overjoyed and self-willed, but in the end, the government forced the people to rebel, the world boiled, and the people were restricted by fire and water, and he himself lost the country in the end."

"So, the most important thing to govern the world is to make the people live and work in peace and contentment, so that the people can have food and clothing. As long as the people can have food and clothing, then everyone will live in peace. If the people can't even solve the food and clothing, it is useless to talk about great cause , the emperor made the people hungry, and the court made the people die, so even the weakest people will risk their lives to rebel. There is a saying that is good, as long as you are willing to cut yourself, you dare to pull the emperor off the horse .”

"Jiawen, the sages talked about the golden mean, do you know what the golden mean means?"

"Father, the mean comes from the Analects of Confucius, and the mean is a virtue, and it is the ultimate. He Yan, a great Confucian in the Eastern Han Dynasty, explained that meanness is common, and neutrality can be a common way."

Luo Cheng nodded, "That's right, to put it simply, the mean is not mediocrity, but Zhongzheng is peaceful and not going to extremes. We must adapt to the times, things, circumstances, and local conditions. Remember one thing, don't go to extremes."

"Yang Guang went to extremes back then, and acted too hastily, and ended up perishing in the world." Luo Cheng looked at the prince, "I know your talent is mediocre, so I never thought about what a powerful king you will become in the future. I also hope that you can face up to this point of yourself, and I will be very satisfied if you can be a successful king in the future."

When the prince heard this, he bowed his head in disappointment.

"Jiawen, there is nothing wrong with being an ordinary person. Since ancient times, there have been so many emperors, how many are truly outstanding kings? Most of the emperors are just ordinary people. You are still young, and I am still young. I will try my best I will cut off the thorns on the scepter for you, and I will hand over a smooth scepter to you in the future. I will also select more virtuous talents for you. There is a good system and a good prime minister , then after you inherit Great Qin in the future, as long as you don’t act recklessly, then Great Qin can continue to prosper smoothly.”

Luo Cheng hopes to complete the first round of expansion of Daqin in his own hands. After this round of expansion is completed, Luo Cheng plans to start to gather his fists and concentrate on internal governance, so as to make the world more stable and allow Jiawen to inherit A more peaceful world.

So now he is so concerned about slaves, but he doesn't want to leave such a complicated issue until later.

"We drive the donkeys to the horse mill, and we also know that we need to hang sow grass on the donkey's head. This is to give people hope. Slaves are human beings, which are more complicated. Therefore, we must be more cautious when formulating the system. We not only have to see Now, we have to wait 50 years and 100 years. If the imperial court does not have a reasonable system, then sooner or later the tens of millions of slaves in the empire will become a huge problem, and may even ruin the Great Qin Empire."

"Father, it's impossible, isn't it?"

"As long as you are a human, nothing is impossible, everything is possible. Think about it, what is the total population of the Great Qin Empire today?"

The prince is also starting to study government affairs now, so he knows about it, "According to the memorial issued by the Ministry of Civil Affairs at the beginning of the year, there are now more than [-] million households with a population of more than [-] million."

"Well, I remember well, so how many slaves are there among the more than [-] million people?"

"More than twelve million slaves."

"In addition to the more than 8000 million slaves, there are also many newly returned barbarians Hu Di, and there are no less than tens of millions." Luo Cheng analyzed with the prince, "Of the population of 200 million, slaves accounted for 8000 million. There are tens of millions of naturalized barbarians, that is to say, slaves account for half of Daqin’s [-] million population, and newly naturalized barbarians also account for more than [-]%, adding up to nearly [-]%.”

"Out of ten people, three of them are either slaves or barbarians. This is a very dangerous thing."

"But the imperial court needs slaves. They need slaves for working, serving, farming, mining, etc."

Luo Cheng nodded, "Because of this, the imperial court did not ban slaves, but it could not ignore the hidden risks. Therefore, the imperial court needs to ensure that these hidden dangers are digested from the system. The way my father thinks now is to give these slaves some hope that they can Slowly digest these problems, rather than letting the problems continue to ferment and become bigger."

Legislation protects slaves from abuse and killing, legislation protects their basic wages, protects their basic living conditions, and even legislation promises that the third generation of slaves can be employed as free workers, and the third generation of free employees can directly obtain the status of good citizens and naturalization. It is to unclog and digest the hidden dangers brought about by the slave system and avoid the final detonation of slave conflicts.

For three generations and three generations, Luo Cheng believed that these descendants of slaves who had lived in the Central Plains for several generations could still integrate into China after all. There was hope in the future and basic guarantees for life, so the possibility of slaves' resistance could be minimized to the greatest extent.

In this way, there is no need to be afraid that slaves will continue to break away from this identity and integrate into the Han nationality, and new slaves will continue to enter the Great Qin.

(End of this chapter)