Great Warriors of Sui and Tang Dynasties

Chapter 812
When Li Mi left Cangcheng, Luokou, a group of dozens of people was escorted by 200 people sent by Pei Xingyan. They first entered the Yellow River by boat in Luoshui, and then went down the river to land at Baimadu in Dongjun.

Once on the shore, it is considered to have completely entered the territory of the Qin army.

On the pier, Li Mi felt a completely different atmosphere from before.

In spring, Li Mi led an army to besiege Baima City here to stop Xia Wang Dou Jiande. At that time, Baimadu near Baima City was a battlefield, with soldiers and horses everywhere, and countless ditches.

The nearby village market was also completely empty.

The bones of the dead are exposed in the wild, there is no rooster crowing for a hundred miles, the villages are in ruins, and the fields are full of weeds.

But it was only half a year, and in this late autumn season, Baima Ferry was actually very busy, with countless boats coming and going, bringing boatloads of people and many merchants.

Most of the people who loaded and unloaded the ships on the pier were young and strong, but their faces were full of joy, not numb or disheveled.

Going forward, Baima City, which was almost destroyed in the fierce battle between the Wei and Xia armies, has actually regained its vitality at this time.The city was restored, and the earthen wall built by Wei Jun outside the city has now become the gate wall of Baima City.

Outside the original city walls of Baima City, the Qin people built four new gates, Dongguan, Xiguan, Nanguan, and Beiguan, which almost doubled the size of Baima City. Before the Wei army built the earthen wall to besiege the Xia army, the Qin people reinforced it. Later, it became the Waiguan City Wall, and several Waiguan Gates were opened on the Waiguan City Wall. At the same time, the urn on the original city wall was demolished and moved outside the Waiguan City Gate.

They also introduced running water around Waiguan City, and diverted water through Baima City, so that there is actually a small canal in the city that can be used by ships to carry goods and grain.

And not far outside the city, you can see villages full of vitality.

On the road, there were many people coming and going, and many people were pushing carts and driving cattle and horses, or simply carried them on their shoulders.

"What do these people do?"

"For those who donate and sell grain, the weather is pretty good this autumn, and the crops in the field are basically harvested."

According to the emperor's decree of the Great Qin Dynasty, the two-tax system is now fully implemented. The tax is not based on the income of the small family, but the amount of land and the amount of family property, and then the household tax and the local tax are paid. Field mu is taxed, and the fields are divided into upper, middle and lower third-class fields, each with a difference.

At the same time, it is now a time of war to unify the world, so the imperial court has issued a special order to implement a peace purchase system. In addition to paying rent and tax, all the grain collected by the people, after leaving enough rations for the people, the rest of the grain will be unified. The government buys and prohibits private grain merchants from purchasing.

This peace purchase is to ensure food security, and also to facilitate the overall dispatch of the imperial court, to support the resumption of production in various places, and to supply troops on the front line.

The two taxes are collected in two seasons, summer and autumn, that is, after the harvest in summer and autumn. Now it is after the autumn harvest, and the people are busy handing over grain to the subordinate officials who go to the countryside to collect grain. Of course, the public grain is collected by the government. To sell grain, the people need to send the grain to the grain stations in counties and townships by themselves.

And these food-picking people on the road here in Baima City actually took some excess from the rations reserved for them by the government and sold them here.

This kind of small amount of grain trading is not prohibited by the government.

"Is there any leftover grain to sell?"

Li Mi was a little surprised. When he thought about it, food was the most important thing in the competition among all parties. It would be nice to leave enough rations for the people, how could there be any surplus.

"The rations reserved by the government for the people are relatively sufficient. Regardless of the number of adults or children in a family, they are all kept according to the rations of the adults, so there will be some affluence. The people sell the rations and exchange them for money. You can buy what you need."

After only one night of rest in Baima City, we continued our journey.

Along the way, Li Mi was even more amazed. When he withdrew from the four counties before, he asked his subordinates to destroy the towns and villages in the four counties, fill in the wells, block the canals, and break the bridges. But now walking here, the road is smooth and flat, the canals It is also unobstructed, with villages scattered on the plain, full of vitality.

In the fields, in the fields that have just been harvested, there are still many farmers in the fields.

"That's planting in autumn."

After the autumn harvest, some fields will be planted again, some will be planted with wheat, some will be planted with radishes and the like.

The further east you go, the more vitality you will find here.

Especially after entering Qi County, I found that this place is even more lively, even if it is Luoyang, it is completely incomparable.

It is simply two worlds.

Even many of Li Mi's subordinates couldn't help asking, why is there such a big difference?

"It's because the people of Qi County haven't had much burden in the past few years, especially since the emperor came to the throne. In other places, they only know how to squeeze the people, collect money and food from the people, and recruit civilian husbands to serve. They suffer from labor and rent. In particular, most of them also implement the law of apportionment and escape. The upper level assigns quotas to the counties and villages below. For example, a village has 99 households. If one escapes, the remaining 90 households will have to share the escaped household If ten households escaped, the remaining [-] households would pay an additional ten households, and if half of the hundred households escaped, it would mean that the remaining people would have to pay double the tax.”

People in many places in the Central Plains suffered from wars, thieves, bandits, heavy rents and taxes, and hard labor, so many people were forced to flee. Once they fled, the rest of the people suffered even more. Naturally, they had to keep fleeing in the end, a vicious circle .

On the contrary, why is there no such situation in Qi County?
As soon as you come to Qi County, there have been basically no major incidents in recent years, and the bandits in the local area are so fierce that ordinary bandits don't dare to come here to make trouble. But the military discipline is stricter, and there are few cases of disturbing and harming the people.

In addition, there is no such thing as tax increase or share evasion here, especially now that the two-tax system is no longer real rent and tax adjustment system, but the burden on the people has actually been greatly reduced.

"How does the emperor support the army?" Li Mi asked a question that troubled him a lot.

No matter who he is, whether he loves the people or is cruel, he has to support the army after all, and if he supports the army, he will get money and food.How did Luo Cheng support the army?

"There is a tax for industry and commerce, there is a tax for monopoly, and there is also farming."

It is very simple to say, but this way has not been realized by other ways, and now only Qin Jun's family is implementing it.The implementation of the two taxes is based on the implementation of land equalization. Luo Cheng's second land equalization has reduced the number of land mergers by powerful landlords under his rule. The situation of the many people on the border and the narrow land has been greatly improved. On the other hand, a large number of fields originally belonging to the royal family and the government were given to the people, which also increased the number of self-cultivating farmers.

Without bandits and riots, the people can farm with peace of mind, and the land will not be abandoned.Without heavy tax and hard labor, the people would not flee.The collection of industrial and commercial taxes actually has nothing to do with ordinary people. It affects merchants, powerful nobles, but not the common people. Moreover, this tax has little effect on those people. Under the current situation, few Merchants will flee from the stable Qin land because of this tax.

Not to mention, Luo Cheng also has a plan for the army.

When the people were not farming, they built roads, cities, and water conservancy. Emperor Luo Cheng also specially ordered that these people were not free labor, but those who were idle or poor were recruited and given money and food.

"Is there still money and food for the service? Where did the government get this money and food?" Li Mi was even more surprised.

(End of this chapter)