Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 698
The days passed day by day, and soon it was the Spring Festival.

In Jicheng, every household is preparing to welcome the New Year. The noise on the street mixed with the sound of firecrackers is transmitted to Yuan Xi's mansion.

Jushou raised his head and saw Yuan Xi who was still meditating among the bamboo slips in the room, and Guo Jia who was in a daze beside him. He couldn't help but smile bitterly and shook his head.

The New Year is coming today, and the servants have already gone back to their homes to reunite with their families. However, Yuan Xi took the two of them to discuss the placement of officials in Youzhou villages and towns after the New Year. Yuan Xi told them what these officials were responsible for After specifying the matter, Jushou's head suddenly became a little bigger.

It seems like there are too many things to worry about!

From sowing to disaster relief, from volunteerism to mutual aid, from conscription to hard labor, these subordinate officials have to master it.

Jushou could also understand Yuan Xi's thoughts. Before this, except for some officials appointed by the Han court, these tasks were all intervened by the landlords and wealthy families in the villages and towns.

Moreover, Jushou believes that this practice has been passed down for hundreds of years and has its own rationality.

The Han Dynasty implemented a system of prefectures and counties. There were counties below the county level, county magistrates for large counties (more than [-] households), and county magistrates for small counties (less than [-] households). They were all the highest officials of a county and were at the same level as the county. Local administrative agencies also include Dao, Guo and Yi.

Below the county level are townships, li, and pavilions. In the Han system, there is one pavilion for ten li, and one township for ten pavilions. In the countryside, there are li, sh, and wu. The li has a li chief, the shi has a shichang, the wu has a wu chief, and the pavilion has a pavilion chief.

Therefore, according to the Han system, there are actually a large number of village and village officials, and they do play a lot of roles.

But in fact, the lowest level that the Han court's administrative power could effectively reach was the county magistrate.

Once you get down to the lower level, it becomes difficult to care about it. Although the issuance and implementation of many government orders also have to go through the township chief and pavilion chief, the actual implementation and implementation are inseparable from another force.

A wealthy local family.

As a local snake, the decrees issued by the Han court at all levels require their cooperation, otherwise they will not be implemented at all.

The fundamental reason for this factor lies in land.

Since the establishment of the Western Han Dynasty, beginning with Liu Bang, the policy of recuperation and recuperation was implemented to reduce or exempt land rent, and one tax per ten was changed to one tax per thirty to increase people's income and expand population growth.

According to historical records, this laissez-faire policy of rule by inaction was the reason why the Han court's treasury was increasingly full, and even three generations later Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was able to launch a war against the Xiongnu.

This sounds good at first, but when you think about it carefully, it is completely illogical.

Where does the money for the treasury come from?

Some people say that this was due to Emperor Wen of Han opening up the right to mint coins to counties and selling his titles and official positions, but this is only part of the reason.

Generally speaking, if the national treasury is full, the people must live a prosperous life, but the real situation is that the people lived in poverty during the Han Dynasty, even worse than when Liu Bang established the dynasty.

Chao Cuo described in "On Guisu Shu" that the people were still in a state of hunger and semi-starvation, and most of the people were still struggling on the line of life.

"Hanshu, Volume 24, Food and Huo Zhi," records that because they had no land to cultivate, many people embarked on the road of falling into bandits. This was also the content of Dong Zhongshu's several letters to the court. Therefore, at that time, some people privately referred to Wenjing's rule. It's called false prosperity.

The economic improvement after the founding of the feudal dynasty sometimes had little to do with policies. It was purely a dividend from the large-scale population growth in the Taiping Era.

From the early years of the Han Dynasty to the period of Emperor Jing of the Han Dynasty, a large amount of cultivated land was released, and policies to reduce taxes were implemented, but in the final analysis there were problems with distribution.

Under this policy of encouraging land annexation, most of the land was owned by local gentry and gentry. They not only received the rent-free policy from the Han court, but also used this policy to exploit the people. They leased land to farmers at high prices. Farmers with capital rent land, and the rental fee exceeds [-]%.

If the weather was good, the people could barely keep enough food to supply the family during farming. However, disasters occurred frequently in the Han Dynasty, and only one or two good years could survive. The normal situation was to have poor harvests for several years in a row. The people not only handed over the food to the local tyrants and squires. Taxes are not paid, and the family's food and drink cannot be guaranteed.

So in order to survive, the people either sold themselves into slavery or became refugees, turned grass into bandits, and simply rebelled.

When thieves arose in a dynasty, there must be something wrong with the court's policies. This land problem, which began before the Wenjing rule, has troubled China for thousands of years.

In the following dynasties, from the Tang Dynasty to the Song Dynasty, and finally to the Ming Dynasty, many ambitious people were trying their best to reform the land policy and find a better way. However, every reform failed without exception. They encountered great resistance and ultimately ended in failure.

This is the biggest obstacle that has existed in villages and villages for thousands of years.

Landlord squire.

The official name of squire did not appear until the Song Dynasty, but it has existed since the birth of the concepts of gentry and gentry in the Qin and Han Dynasties. It was called the "head of the four peoples". In ancient times when transportation information was underdeveloped and government orders could not be sent to the countryside, it was An important bridge between the people and the court.

Thus a famous saying from the Northern Song Dynasty was born.

The emperor and the scholar-bureaucrats ruled the world together.

The scholar-bureaucrats here include important ministers and officials above the temple, as well as bureaucrats at all levels, and finally even the landlords and gentry in the countryside.

The emperor did not face the people directly, but faced the scholar-bureaucrats, and then governed the people through the scholar-bureaucrats, thereby governing the world.

This method was full of helplessness and was caused by the limitations of feudal society. Many emperors tried to change it, but in the end they found that even the emperor's power could not completely solve it.

After this set of things took shape, the lowest levels of villages and towns became places that were out of reach at the top. Although there were pavilion chiefs and five chiefs, how could such officials, who rotated for several years, compare with the power of a century-old family?
So from another perspective, under the appearance of unified China, many places can be said to be large and small independent kingdoms controlled by landlords and wealthy families. Although they clearly follow the laws of the imperial court, that's all.

This kind of long-established harshness can still maintain its effect when the dynasty is prosperous, but when the dynasty is weak, it becomes an extremely unstable factor, especially at the end of the dynasty, when the imperial power declines, for the lower class common people. He said that it was not the emperor who decided their life or death, but the wealthy squire family in the same village.The question goes back to the beginning, why was the national treasury so full during Wenjing’s rule?

The answer is that due to the accelerated land annexation at that time, the landowners, gentry and nobles became the beneficiaries of the policy of benefiting the people. Naturally, they must be very active in paying profits and taxes. Not only would they not default on the tax, they would even find ways to pay more to allow the court to continue this policy. , for this reason, they will intensify their exploitation of the peasants and charge higher taxes to support the court.

This is the rule of Wen and Jing, and it is also the truth of many dynasties where the treasury was full, but the people below were in dire straits, displaced and forced to rebel.

However, Emperor Liu Che of the Han Dynasty, who was much criticized later, took advantage of the opportunity of using foreign troops to drastically change the previous national policy, gradually divided the rights and land of the nobility and gentry, and used centralized power to transfer the land back to the hands of the people.

Because of this, Liu Che was smeared a lot by historians who came from the landlord class.

In Yuan Xi's heart, there were only two emperors in the Han Dynasty whom he admired.

One is Liu Bang and the other is Liu Che. These two at least know what the people want, but the others are too far behind.

He wrote down these views and showed them to Ju Shou Guo Jia and others, and everyone was stunned.

Although they are all knowledgeable and familiar with the history and records of the Han Dynasty, no one has ever so nakedly torn off the tender skin so cleanly, revealing the bloody flesh and blood inside.

Compared to Guo Jia who didn't care, Jushou said in a solemn voice: "What do you want to do, Lord Ming?"

This was the first time that Jushu admired Yuan Xi's insight from the bottom of his heart, and he also started to get to know Yuan Xi again. He naturally knew that Yuan Xi would not write such things for no reason, and was naturally planning to do something!
Yuan Xi smiled and said, "I still understand, sir."

"Unlike the Central Plains, Youzhou does not have that many landlords and wealthy families, and as foreigners move south, many wealthy families will also flee to the Central Plains."

"This is actually a good opportunity for me. I want to try to do something to see if I can change the world a little and find a new path."

Compared with Guo Jiajushu and others who were limited by the times, Yuan Xi, who stood on the shoulders of his predecessors, understood that if such a land policy continued, it would eventually reach a dead end.

Not only the decline of the Han Dynasty, but also the Tang, Song, Yuan and Ming dynasties were all related to problems with the land policy. Over the past thousands of years, the futile efforts of countless smart people who were more outstanding than Yuan Xi had declared that this road would not work.

Later generations commented on this phenomenon, "Working alone will inevitably cause polarization. If you don't want it for two years, class differentiation will appear everywhere after more than a year. Some of them still embezzle, take over, beg for concubines, and buy land with usury. On the other hand, there is poverty." The bankruptcy of farmers is precisely the foundation of our society and what we rely on."

"Household production quotas may increase grain production in the short term, but over time, it will become polarized and the bourgeoisie will rise again to exploit the working people."

This is the cycle of history. This is irrepressible human nature. Originally, wanting everyone to have food to eat is a great and arduous undertaking to suppress the evil nature of human nature.

Yuan Xi knew that he could not break away from the limitations of the productivity of the times and do some unrealistic behaviors that were high and floating in the clouds. What he wanted to do was to show the world that at least there was another way to go.

Although Jushou was amazed by Yuan Xi's idea, he quickly raised objections.

"Ming Gong's idea is to directly control Xiangting, but without the support of the local wealthy families, it will be difficult to do so."

"After all, most of the land is in their hands. Compared to Jizhou, which is [-] out of [-], Youzhou also accounts for [-] out of [-]."

"I want their land and also want them to contribute to Youzhou. I really can't think of any way to prevent them from taking advantage of us."

Yuan Xi sighed: "Sir, you are right."

He couldn't help but admire Ju Shou's sensitivity. This issue was the most obvious in the Song Dynasty, and the backlash was also the most intense.

The Song Dynasty tried to separate the scholar-bureaucrats from the land, so they used a very tough attitude and policy to limit the amount of land the scholar-bureaucrats had, and at the same time used salaries to make up for it.

The idea is good, but in the eyes of the scholar-bureaucrats, since I have lost all my land, why should I still work for you, the Song Dynasty?

Wouldn’t the Jurchen Liao Kingdom bring more benefits?
As a result, a large number of surrender factions were born in the Song Dynasty, and collaboration between scholar-bureaucrats and the enemy became the main theme of the Song Dynasty.

After Zhu Yuanzhang established the Ming Dynasty, he saw this hidden danger and knew that sooner or later the landowners would become parasites attached to the imperial power. So he vigorously attacked the land managers and used the kings to enfeoff the land to control the land.

But there was only one emperor, but there were tens of millions of landowners. Even the enfeoffed kings eventually became the largest landowners, so Zhu Yuanzhang also failed.

By the end of the Ming Dynasty, those who rebelled not only included many officials, but also Shanxi merchants and other forces. This was because their connection with the political system had weakened. The foundation of the feudal social system of government was land. If land was deprived, the sense of identity would be deprived.
Especially for businessmen, the more developed the business, the weaker the connection with the country's political system, and the weaker the sense of identification with the political system. The final way is to change the family.

Throughout the dynasties, businessmen wanted to gain status when they had money. Those with connections found ways to get into the upper echelons, while those with no connections directly used their family resources to rebel. In many cases, those who rebelled and caused chaos started as private salt traders.

The ranking of scholars, farmers, industry and commerce comes from this. It has to be said that the wisdom of the ancients is sometimes not that simple.

The solution to this problem is not just to turn over the table in reality, but also to completely smash the table in people's hearts.

So Yuan Xi said to Ju Shu: "So I would like to ask Mr. Fengxiao to make this article of mine a compulsory discussion subject in free studies."

"In addition, the arrangements for village officials in Youzhou will be presided over by Mr. Gongyu."

Guo Jia and Jushou looked bitter after hearing this. Every time Yuan Xi asked them to do something, it was extremely difficult, and this time it was even more of a trap!

(End of this chapter)