Xuande

Chapter 632 A Knife Can't Cut Down on Ourselves, Can It?
Lu Zhi also thought about making meat eaters bleed.

When he realized the problem of land annexation in Jizhou, he thought of a solution to the problem for a moment.

Question and kill those who occupy the land, return their land to the imperial court, and then distribute it to those who lost the land. In this way, the problem can be solved.

It is a very simple set of operations, which was also done at the beginning of the founding of the Han Dynasty.

But then he thought about the difficulty of this approach.

If it was so easy to do so, with Liu Xiu's talent, how could he stop him halfway?
"Let the meat-eaters bleed..."

Lu Zhi sighed very much, and said slowly: "It's not easy to let the meat eaters bleed? They are all powerful people. Even if they don't save the land for a while, but just attack the slaves, many people will resist."

"People who will resist me for this will definitely resist me when they wait for Du Tian, ​​so kill them now, and when they wait for Du Tian, ​​the power against me will be much smaller."

Liu Bei smiled and said, "At that time, the pressure on the teacher and I will be less, won't it?"

"Xuande, Xuande, one step counts as two steps, my teacher is no match for you at all."

Lu Zhi smiled wryly and said, "What else can I say? I can only say that everything is careful. Even if the army you pull up is really strong, you must be careful. Things that cannot be decided by the military in the world are still There are many."

"This road is not easy to walk, but teacher, I don't want to take another road."

Liu Bei is well aware of the limitations of this era, but since he has reached the point where he is alone in the world, how can he stand still and rest peacefully?
If he was just an ordinary person, then lying flat would mean lying flat. The world is not his world, and it is not his turn to dictate. He is full of confidence in lying flat.

But he is now a great general, a general who is under one person and over ten thousand people, and a general who is responsible for the entire Han Empire. If he lies flat, the entire Han Empire will almost be over.

So he can't lie flat, he has to toss up and try his best to do something.

After ventilating with Lu Zhi, Liu Bei sent someone to summon the subordinates of the General's Mansion, and had a public discussion with them about the seriousness of the slave issue.

He decided to start to solve the slave problem in the society of the Han Empire, and use this as a fulcrum to leverage the basic disk of the Han Empire and start his own road of in-depth reform.

"According to the latest calculations, it is certain that the total number of official slaves and private slaves in the entire Great Han Kingdom has exceeded 800 million, accounting for more than [-]% of the total population of the Great Han Kingdom. Some are private slaves.

It is conceivable that so many people become slaves instead of farming and producing on the land, how much damage this will bring to the country's tax revenue, and more importantly, a considerable part of these slaves do not comply with laws and regulations of.

According to the regulations of the imperial court, there are 200 servants and maidservants of princes and kings, 30 princes and princesses, 200 princes of Guannei and officials. More than six times the upper limit set by the imperial court.

I can be sure that this is not an isolated case. It must be widespread throughout the Han Kingdom. Almost all families with a little bit of power have this problem, more or less. If this situation cannot be curbed , will only get worse. "

After Liu Bei finished speaking, the subordinates in the General's Mansion had different complexions and whispered to each other. Obviously, their reaction to this incident was relatively large.

Cheng Yu clearly sensed the purpose of Liu Bei's speech.

"Is what the general said dissatisfied with the current trend of slavery?"

"Not dissatisfied, but very dissatisfied."

Liu Bei said slowly: "Once a commoner becomes a slave, he is no longer a citizen of a great man, and the products he produces no longer need to pay taxes for the great man, but just go to the slave master directly. The more slaves there are, the richer the slave master will be. The taxation of the imperial court went from bad to worse.

Isn't this the actual situation in the previous hundred years?Of course, if it is said that these slaves are prisoners of war and criminals, that’s fine, they deserve what they deserve, but in fact, the largest number of slaves are the households that lost their land and went bankrupt.

Under natural disasters and man-made disasters, they lost their land and property, sold themselves as slaves, and together with their land, became the property of the slave owner. The slave owner then used various methods to conceal the income from the land and plundered it. This is the tax that should belong to the court. One point was snapped.

Without taxes, how would the Han court function?Where does your salary come from?Where does the army's military expenditure come from?Where did the money for repairing the city walls and rivers come from?If one day the imperial court can't pay your salaries, wouldn't it be absurd? "

General Mao Mao raised his hand to speak.

"That being the case, what is the general going to do?"

"Of course it is the Son of Heaven who followed the example of Emperor Guangwu and issued an edict ordering the release of those who voluntarily sold themselves into slavery due to bankruptcy."

It is not surprising that Liu Bei said this. Emperor Guangwu Liu Xiu issued an edict seven times to restore the citizenship of those who had been sold into slavery due to bankruptcy, and tried every means to limit the number of slaves.

However, the root cause of the large number of slaves cannot be solved with a single paper restricting slavery. Everyone knows this.

So Mao Jie spoke boldly.

"General, the reason for the high number of slaves is not whether the imperial court issued a slave restriction order, but because a large number of ordinary people have no livelihood and can only be forced to sell themselves as slaves. If this problem is not resolved, the released slaves will have no food to eat. If you restore your nationality for a while, you will eventually go back and continue to be a slave."

Liu Bei nodded, pointing to Mao Jie to praise.

"Xiaoxian said it very well. The reason for the large number of slaves is not whether the imperial court issued a slave restriction order, but because there is no food to eat. There is no way to stop those who have no food from selling themselves into slavery. So what we really need to do is If these slaves were to be fed, they would not be slaves.

So this time, in conjunction with the recovery of Bingzhou, we have to resume the production and construction of Bingzhou, and the number of local households in Bingzhou is extremely rare and cannot undertake the work of restoring construction. Therefore, I decided to start in Bingzhou, Sanhe, Sanfu and Hongnong counties. An emancipation act to fill the gaps in state households with freed slaves from these areas.

These freed slaves will be re-registered, incorporated into Bingzhou households, and granted them land, allowing them to live again in Bingzhou, which can be regarded as a strategy of immigration in a sense. ah? "

Liu Bei told his real purpose and asked everyone to help him evaluate the feasibility of this matter.

In terms of feasibility, there are actually some. With Liu Bei's current military and political prestige, isn't it a trivial matter to want to get a batch of slaves?
And put it in Bingzhou to live again, which is tantamount to recycling waste, which will help rejuvenate Bingzhou, which is of course a good thing.

But the question is, if we really want to do it according to the number stipulated by the court, will it cause some loss of interests to people from all walks of life and even themselves?

Everyone knows that few people are clean when it comes to slavery.

Even if there is no problem in their own family, if it is enlarged to the whole family, will there be any problem?
If you really want to investigate, even if the families and clans of these subordinate officials in the general's mansion can find out the problem, then when Liu Bei asks them to make a choice, what should they do?
The knife can't cut down on one's own people, can it?
So even the officials in the general's mansion were worried about Liu Bei's decree.

(End of this chapter)