Neon Clothes and Iron Clothes

Having said this, he bowed to the queen and turned to leave.Looking at Wang Wenzuo's leaving figure, Queen Pei's mediocre face was filled with an angry blush.

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When Wang Wenzuo walked down the stairs and was about to walk through the long and narrow corridor, a figure chased him from behind. The accompanying guards opened their arms vigilantly to block the owner behind him.

"General Wang!" Xu Xuwen was chasing after him. His breath was a little hurried: "If you don't mind, could you lend me a step to speak?"

Wang Wenzuo stopped and said, "Okay!"

Xu Xuwen took a few steps forward and lowered his voice: "Please step back, I want to talk to you alone!" Under the corridor was a dry ditch, and the moonlight shone on the bottom of the ditch, dyeing it silvery white.

"Don't worry, there are Japanese and Mohe people here. They can't understand what we are saying!" Wang Wenzuo looked at Xu Xuwen warily. Out of instinct, he did not believe this eunuch.

Xu Xuwen glanced at the guard beside Wang Wenzuo cautiously, and took another step forward: "General, do you have many friends in Chang'an?"

"Friends? What do you mean?" Wang Wenzuo frowned.

"I mean, if, I mean if!" Xu Xuwen glanced left and right as he spoke, as if looking for a hidden monitor: "Your Majesty fainted and did not wake up today. You have enough friends to protect yourself." ?"

Wang Wenzuo looked at the eunuch in front of him coldly: "You mean, there is a conspiracy behind His Majesty's fainting today?"

"No, no!" Xu Xuwen took half a step back, his whole body tensed like a bowstring: "But don't you think this is very dangerous? His Majesty suddenly fainted at such a young age, but the imperial doctor could not find the cause. With the first Every time there will be a second time, if I were you, I would definitely be careful!"

"Then let's pray to the gods and Buddhas! I hope this won't happen again!" Wang Wenzuo said coldly.

When Wang Wenzuo returned home, he was exhausted, but he couldn't sleep.In Game of Thrones, if you don’t win, you will die. This sentence is not only valid in Westeros.He couldn't help but wonder: Could it be that, as the eunuch said, the emperor's fainting was not accidental?Is there someone hiding behind the scenes?who's that person?If something happens to the emperor next time, will he have enough ability to control Chang'an and ensure that nothing goes wrong?

"Call the messenger!" Wang Wenzuo called Sancho and handed him the letter he had just written: "As soon as daybreak, he rushed to Shaanzhou and handed the letter to Igilianbod in person, asking him to follow the instructions written in the letter. Go do it!”

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Shaanzhou.

The setting sun after autumn shines on the raised platform, dyeing the heavy ears of grain red and yellow. The farmers line up in an intermittent row, immersed in harvesting in the fields.They bent over, wielding their sickles, and cut down handfuls of grains. Sweat fell from their foreheads and cheeks, stinging their eyes, but no one straightened up to wipe it away.Everyone is working in their fields with crazy energy. The harvest time is very tight. No one knows whether there will be heavy rain or strong wind tomorrow, destroying the harvest of the year.

"At this rate, the autumn crops in these villages will be harvested in two to three days! Seeing these farmers reminds me of my hometown. Whether it is the Tang Dynasty or the Japanese country, the farmers are all equally diligent and hardworking!" Igillenbod looked at the farmland in the distance and sighed.

"Yes!" Wu Zhimeng sighed: "Farming is the foundation of the four peoples. If the foundation is strong, the country will be peaceful!"

"Yes!" Yiji Lianbod nodded: "Wu Shupan, when do you think the labor conscription can start?"

"After the crops are harvested, they still need to be threshed, dried, bagged, put into warehouses, and paid taxes. It takes fifteen or six days at least. After all this hard work, the people have to drink and rest for three to five days in order to regain their strength. Then we can collect labor force!"

"So it's enough to stay here for twenty days?" Ijirenbod asked.

"It should be almost done!" Wu Zhimeng replied: "Actually, if you are in a hurry, leaving it for eleven or two days will be enough!"

"Eleven or two days?" Igilianbod frowned: "Didn't you just say that it takes fifteen or sixteen days to thresh the grain and dry it, and you also need three to five days of drinking and resting in the countryside? Why did you say that eleven or two days would be enough? ?”

"Haha!" Wu Zhimeng laughed twice: "The subordinates just mentioned it when they are not busy, but if the pressure from above is urgent, they won't care about so much. Anyway, as long as the crops in the fields are harvested, the labor force will be levied. It’s just a strong man, and the rest can be done by women, children and the elderly. It is nothing more than suffering for the people. Although this method sounds unpleasant to say, it is effective after all. Hasn’t it been like this from ancient times to the present?”

Yiji Lianbode is not a young person who has never seen the world, so he naturally knows that although Wu Zhimeng's words are unpleasant, they are really telling the truth.No matter how nice their words were, the rulers of various countries in ancient times actually had roughly the same attitude towards farmers: Tokugawa Ieyasu once said: "Keeping farmers half dead is the secret of politics"; another shogun said, "Peasants are half dead." Just like sesame seeds, the more they are squeezed, the more oil they produce." Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty was always known for cherishing the power of the people, but during the Zhenguan period, groups of Tang farmers cut off their hands and feet to avoid military service.

To put it bluntly, the excellent ancient rulers squeezed the peasants until they were half dead, while the mediocre ancient rulers squeezed the peasants until they could only die. The difference between the two is not whether they exploited, but whether the degree of oppression exceeded a certain limit.If you follow the rent system in the early Tang Dynasty mentioned in books, the burden on farmers in the early Tang Dynasty was actually not heavy, but that is only what is written in the book, and it is completely different from the reality. Even the government documents of the Tang Dynasty stated that It is also admitted that the actual labor time, intensity, and season are far beyond what should be theoretically expected.Generally speaking, labor is more cruel to farmers than levying monetary taxes and physical taxes, because farmers can keep part of the fruits of their labor by concealing their output and fields, but labor is different, unless you become a refugee or a hermit. Otherwise, you will not be able to escape, and once you are drafted, abuse, beatings and heavy labor are inevitable, which will directly harm the health and even life of the draftee.In fact, the magnificent Chang'an City in the Tang Dynasty is evidence of the cruel oppression of the working people by the rulers at that time - take the Daming Palace as an example. This complex of buildings covering an area of ​​3.2 square kilometers was the most magnificent palace in the Tang Empire and the world's largest at that time. The largest palace complex in area, some of the technical work in the palace may be carried out by craftsmen from all over the country, but the heaviest infrastructure work such as building roads, transporting materials, and digging earthwork must be undertaken by the working people in the surrounding areas of Chang'an, and this palace It took a total of 10 and a half months to build the magnificent building complex. It is not difficult to imagine the heavy labor at that time.

"Mr. Yi! The general's messenger has arrived!"

"Oh? Let him come over!"

The messenger's breathing was rapid, his face was covered with dust, and sweat slipped from his forehead, leaving several obvious traces. He knelt down on one knee in front of Igilianbod, pulled out a letter from his arms and presented it: "Igilianbod Sir, the general has an urgent message!"

"Well!" Yijilenbode took the letter and asked while opening it: "How are you, General? Is there anything going on in Chang'an?"

"Well, sir! Nothing happened when I left Chang'an!" The messenger stood up and stepped aside.

Just after Igillenbod read two lines, the smile on his face froze, and his fingertips trembled slightly, as if they were a few dead leaves on the locust tree not far away.Wu Zhimeng hurriedly lowered his head, carefully took half a step back, and opened the distance between himself and Yiji Lianbode.

A few minutes later, Yijilianbod finished reading the letter. He carefully folded the letter again and put it back in his sleeve: "Wu Shupan!"

"Subordinates are here!"

"The general has an order. The construction of the canal is related to the safety of the country and cannot be ignored. Twelve days later, 18 men will be recruited from Shaanzhou and adjacent areas, aged between 30 and [-]!"

"Subordinates obey orders!"

"For those who serve, each person will be given a monthly ration of one stone and two buckets, and a piece of cloth for clothing in summer and winter!"

"what?"

No wonder Wu Zhimeng was so shocked. Calculated based on a 30-day month, the monthly ration of one stone and two buckets equaled four liters of millet per day. This was about the same as the rations for adult heavy manual laborers at that time. Giving one piece of cloth each in summer and winter was equal to There are one set of clothes each for summer and winter. In other words, although the farmers who do the labor do not receive wages, at least they do not need to prepare their own rations. At most, they only need to bring some pickles and shoes.Considering that labor is carried out in late autumn and winter, when there is a surplus of rural labor during the slack season, those who are requisitioned can eat public grain for a few months, thus saving their own grain. In this way, this condition is beneficial to The local middle- and lower-class farmers were quite attractive. At that time, the conditions for farmers who built their own houses to hire day laborers were only about this. The conditions offered by the government were a bit too good to be true.

"Wu Shupan, what's wrong with you? Is there something wrong?"

"No, no, no!" Wu Zhimeng hurriedly denied: "How dare I say anything wrong with you? It's just that this person's ration of one stone and two buckets a month is a bit too much, right? And Xia Dong's gift of clothes, this labor It only lasts for three or four months at best, and they have to be released in the spring, so why bother to release a bolt? Calculating 1 people, 1 shi of grain will be used a month, and [-] bolts of cloth will be needed a year. This is no small number!”

"These are the general's orders, saying not to make the people suffer because of extra labor!" Yijilianbod said: "As for the expenses! The general has allowed me to use 20 dan of grain from the granary treasury in Luoyang. Fifty thousand pieces of cloth are used as expenses for building the canal road. This cost will be deducted from the freight after the canal road is opened!"

"20 shi of grain and [-] bolts of cloth!" Wu Zhimeng was immediately stunned by this huge number. This was roughly equivalent to the taxes of four or five major states in Henan at that time. The difference from today is that in the eyes of people in the Tang Dynasty, food and Cloth is not only for food and clothing, but also a currency that can be circulated, a resounding hard currency.This was equivalent to a wave of Wang Wenzuo's hand, and he transferred the tax revenue of several cities from the account of the Ministry of Finance to Ijilianbode as a special allocation for water transportation. This kind of arrogance immediately knocked Wu Zhimeng and other ninth-grade petty officials unconscious.

"What's wrong?" Yiji Lianbode saw Wu Zhimeng's look: "Is there any problem?"

"No, no!" Wu Zhimeng hurriedly shook his head: "I'll get ready immediately!"

"Okay, hurry up, the wheat harvest is almost finished, don't delay!"

"Yes, yes! Spare me the villain!"

Compared to the dazed Wu Zhimeng who was hit by a pie falling from the sky, Yiji Lianbode naturally knew a lot more.Wang Wenzuo's letter to him revealed some of the recent events in Chang'an Palace, the most important part of which was the emperor's sudden fainting and Queen Pei's movements.As a noble, he certainly understood what Wang Wenzuo didn't say in his letter - the Lord had already felt that the ground beneath his feet was shaking and breaking, and could collapse or collapse at any time.After overthrowing the joint rule of Li Zhi and the Wu family and establishing Li Hong on the throne, Wang Wenzuo actually became the regent. Although he restrained his tentacles as much as possible and did not touch the interests of other vested interests, the surrounding Even with the collapse of Wu's power group, a huge vacuum was formed.

In the eyes of others, Wang Wenzuo, a latecomer who quickly climbed up from the frontier of the empire, has no ability to eat such a big piece of pie alone, so the most correct approach should be to compete, divide, and finally compromise, and sit back and eat the fruits. fruit.In a sense, they were right. Wang Wenzuo did not have enough talents in his pocket to fill many key nodes in the imperial power structure, and even the northern and southern imperial guards could not fill them.Therefore, Wang Wenzuo's strategy was to acknowledge the reality. While reaching a compromise with the existing bureaucracy, he also established a parallel organization loyal to himself as soon as possible - not the shogunate, but the Canal Transport Department.

As a time traveler, Wang Wenzuo is well aware of the importance of finance to the government.The abnormal structure of the Tang Empire further strengthened this point - the political and military center was in Kansai, and the economic center was in Guandong and Jianghuai. Therefore, the more powerful the empire was, the more dependent it was on water transportation.Historically, the Tang Empire's national power was directly proportional to the amount of grain flowing into the Guanzhong region. The more money and grain flowing into the Guanzhong, the empire could maintain a stronger army, a more splendid culture, and a glorious capital.Once the water transportation is cut off, the empire will collapse suddenly, and the powerful army will turn into terrifying bandits. They will go to war against their capital and use their swords to obtain rewards for themselves. "All the embroidery hubs in Huaxuan are sold out, and not half of the first-class noble families are left. Foxes and rabbits roam in the Hanyuan Palace, and thorns are everywhere in front of the Calyx Tower." These four lines of poetry are a bare description of the facts!

But the situation seems to be developing faster than Wang Wenzuo expected. According to his original plan, while he and his opponents were drinking and bargaining in the court, Ijilian Bode would also open up the water canal of the Yellow River, and at the same time he would be able to Countless warehouses and docks on both sides of the Grand Canal are under his control.At that time, it doesn't matter whether it's moving the capital or just having a showdown.But the problem is that all this takes time, and what Wang Wenzuo lacks now is time. (End of chapter)