Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 752 The vicious circle

Yuan Xi saw Huang Yueying's strange look, looked over his shoulder, and looked back, almost making his nose crooked with anger.

Thanks to my impassioned words and being moved by myself, it would be better for you to pick my toes behind my back!

Just wait and see how I torture your feet at night!

Lu Lingqi looked innocent and thought, "Why are you looking at me? I don't understand."

I don’t understand and my legs are numb from sitting. Can’t I move some?

She immediately realized, did her feet smell?

She subconsciously put her hand under her nose and smelled it. At this moment, Zhuge Liang, the calmest person in the room, lost his guard. He coughed quickly and said, "This idea of ​​envoy is very dangerous."

Yuan Xi turned around and sat upright, sighing: "Kong Ming is right."

"That's why I need someone to help me."

Zhuge Liang shook his head and said, "I don't understand."

"It's not surprising to think that Shijun was treated unfairly as a concubine, but now that Shijun is almost half the head of the Yuan family, why..."

Yuan Xi smiled and said, "Why not?"

"I want to ask Kong Ming, if this continues, even if the world is peaceful, what will it look like in the end?"

Zhuge Liang thought for a while and said in a deep voice: "If the world is peaceful again, maybe the world will no longer be divided into princes and kings, but instead, I am afraid there will be several big families with extremely deep foundations, followed by small and medium-sized families."

"For those big families, as long as the dynasty lasts, they can pass it on from generation to generation, unless..."

"Unless the emperor wants to deal with them." Yuan Xi continued: "But if this happens, will it soon return to the previous cycle?"

"The Zhou Dynasty was established, then declined, and entered the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, and then Qin unified the six kingdoms. After that, the world was in chaos. Gaozu established the Han Dynasty, Wang Mang usurped the Han Dynasty, Guangwu Zhongxing, and now the world is in chaos again."

"In the middle, there is the history of the confrontation between the imperial power and the aristocratic families. On the one hand, they want to eliminate the aristocratic families, and on the other hand, they want to gain the imperial power. No matter which side wins, they will start over again and enter a new cycle."

"For thousands of years, no one has escaped this vicious circle. The root cause is human greed."

"Everyone wants to live a long life, and everyone wants the family to survive. When anyone has the ability to covet the position of emperor, they will set their sights on that position."

"During this period, some people did think about making changes, but in the face of the overwhelming tide of people's hearts, they all failed in the end."

"At this point, there are only two and a half emperors who have done something that stands above the rest."

Zhuge Liang subconsciously asked: "Who is it?"

Yuan Xi said in a deep voice: "The emperor of Qin, the great ancestor, and... Wu of Han."

As soon as these words came out, Zhuge Liang showed a look of surprise, "It's just Emperor Qin, but the envoy actually praises Gaozu and Guangwu so much?"

"I have heard that many scholars and historians believe that these two emperors were not only inferior to Guangwu, but also inferior to Wen and Jing."

Yuan Xi smiled and said: "Because behind these historians, there are aristocratic families."

"Gaozu was seriously underestimated, and Han Wu even more so."

"At the beginning of the founding of the dynasty, Emperor Gaozu did enfeoff the kings, but he soon discovered that it had a tendency to become bigger, so he took advantage of the conflicts between the various parties and began to eliminate hidden dangers."

"Although his approach is not very kind, it undoubtedly pointed out a way for Han Ting."

"Later, the mausoleum policy was adopted to further crack down on the powerful, strengthen the imperial power, weaken the local areas, and narrow the gap between the rich and the poor in disguise."

"Of course, compared with its vision of imperial power, it is very weak in internal affairs and economy. Allowing private coinage is a failure."

"However, I can stand up and talk without pain in my back. At that time, when everything was in need of improvement, many policies were helpless."

"The later Emperor Wen did implement a series of people's livelihood policies on the basis of improving people's livelihood. In this regard, he was stronger than Gaozu."

"But he opened his mouth on one of the most critical issues."

Zhuge Liang's eyes flashed, "Is that what the envoy said, allowing land annexation?"

"Exactly," Yuan Xi said sternly: "The emperor's mausoleum policy is essentially to confine the founding nobles."

In the ninth year of Emperor Gaozu of the Han Dynasty (198 BC), Liu Bang accepted the suggestion of his doctor Liu Jing and moved thousands of wealthy officials and their families from the Guandong region to Guanzhong to serve Changling, and built Changling County near the cemetery. For immigrants to live in.

After that, several emperors successively built the Wuling Tombs and moved nobles here. Wuling became a place where rich people gathered. Therefore, the children of rich and powerful families are called Wuling boys.

Yuan Xi spoke up: "The essence of this approach is to weaken the control of powerful nobles over the local area. It is an unprecedented initiative. However, Emperor Wen only had its form but not its spirit. He made a mistake in a key point."

At this time, Huang Yueying couldn't suppress her curiosity and said: "What's wrong?"

Yuan Xi said: "Reduce taxes."

Huang Yueying was surprised and said: "Isn't this a good policy to recuperate and recuperate with the people?"

Yuan Xi sighed: "Yes, for everyone, this is a good policy with no faults."

"But the only pity is that the benefits gained by the aristocratic families are much higher than those of ordinary people who control a small amount of land."

"Even without taxes, small households have little ability to cope with risks during sudden disasters and can easily fall into crisis."

"Taxation in the Han Dynasty was a combination of land tax and head tax. After the land tax changed from one in fifteen to one in thirty, the head tax became a relatively heavy burden for small households."

"In this case, if there is a disaster, households will have to sell their land to wealthy households."

“Rich households with large amounts of land have a stronger ability to cope with the crisis. Coupled with the reduction in land taxes, it has become more cost-effective to acquire land, so overt and covert land annexations began.” “There are some unscrupulous methods among them. How can ordinary civilians defeat the powerful?"

"Thus, in this process, aristocratic families began to be born."

Hearing this, the other three people present had mixed emotions, because according to the legend passed down by their ancestors, the rise of their family really started during Wenjing's time!

Yuan Xi sighed: "To make matters worse, after Gaozu and Emperor Wen, people's lives gradually became richer, and the population began to grow on a large scale."

Huang Yueying became more and more confused, "Life is good and I have more children. What's wrong with that?"

At this time, Zhuge Liang understood and sighed: "Because they have no land."

"When the first emperor established the Qin Dynasty, he granted cities and nobility with military merit and attacked the old aristocrats of the six countries. However, as the war subsided and the population increased from 20 million to 60 million, there was not enough land in the world for people to eat."

“If people don’t have enough food to eat, they will naturally rebel.”

Yuan Xi said in surprise: "This is exactly what I want to say, Kong Ming can actually think of this section!"

Zhuge Liang sighed: "Didn't you also think of it?"

"I really admire Liang."

The two of them suddenly felt like they had met their close friends.

Yuan Xi was pleasantly surprised to find that although the economic theories he mentioned were very simple in later generations, they were still difficult to understand for the ancients of this era. However, he did not expect that Zhuge Liang could really understand them!

Thinking of Zhuge Liang's internal affairs achievements in later generations, Yuan Xi couldn't help but have an idea. Could it be that Zhuge Liang was the key figure in promoting this era?

After all, even if Yuan Xi is well versed in the economic knowledge of later generations, if he is allowed to govern the country now and only rely on himself, he will most likely cause chaos in the world.

This is because most of Yuan Xi's theories are not suitable for this era.

This era has the most suitable approach for this era. Low productivity and possibly low production relations are the most suitable.

Economic policies suitable for this era need to be based on a large amount of detailed data, and these numbers are in the hands of aristocratic families with large amounts of land.

In other words, they know better than the superior emperor what kind of policies to adopt to squeeze out the potential of productivity.

Therefore, the emperor always wanted to weaken the gentry, but he could not do without the gentry. In the end, he was forced to hold his nose and coexist with them.

The same is true for Yuan Xi.

It seems absurd. At the beginning of the Han Dynasty, the population was able to return from more than 10 million to 60 million, the ceiling number that reached the peak of the Han and Tang Dynasties. This was due to the two policies of gentry annexing land and allowing the sale of slaves.

Only by taking a two-pronged approach can we unleash the potential similar to Qin's war mobilization and resume production as early as possible.

Among them, ordinary people, who have become millions of slaves and slaves, have no say.

The people are the most valuable and the king is the least important. This always refers to those who own land.

Without land, they are not people, just slaves.

At this point, Emperor Wen set an extremely bad precedent and released the monster of the Aristocratic Family, allowing it to resurrect from the corpses of the pre-Qin nobles.

However, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was so reviled by historians, saying that he wasted his troops on expeditions and resorted to military warfare. In fact, this was not the main reason.

The fundamental reason is that he confiscated the land of powerful nobles who were merchants, turned it into official land, suppressed the land annexation of nobles, and seriously damaged their interests, so he was caught by the historian who came from a noble family.

But in fact, he rented official land to landless peasants for cultivation at a tax rate of thirty to one, which alleviated social conflicts, and he also built water conservancy projects, eliminating hidden dangers that he originally intended to erupt.

Wang Mang's later land policy seemed to be copied from Zhou Li, but in fact many details were different. It was very similar to Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, but he didn't grasp the degree properly.

During the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, land annexation was greatly reduced and official land increased. It was not until the Guangwu Zhongxing that this policy was abolished and the gentry clan regained its prominence.

But it was not without its problems. In order to control the rapidly growing population, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty adopted the policy of moving people to the border areas, and most of the people died on the road.

Yuan Xi is in pain, because the more he wakes up and understands the current situation, the more he understands why the feudal dynasty has been unable to get out of this vicious circle for thousands of years.

The so-called social reform is based on productivity. Without corresponding productivity, wanting to change the world can only be based on delusional dreams.

The upper limit of population in the Han and Tang Dynasties was 60 million. Once this number exceeded, the world would inevitably be in chaos.

The upper limit of the Song and Ming Dynasties was about 100 million. Once it was exceeded, the land would not be enough to eat, and the dynasty would decline rapidly.

The Qing Dynasty introduced potatoes, sweet potatoes and other crops, and the number exceeded 300 million, but the essence has not changed.

The law of history is that when the population reaches its ceiling and consumption exceeds output, unrest will inevitably occur without exception.

As an emperor, sometimes you have to be ruthless and use some means to reduce the excess population. There is a way to govern the world, and there is a way to chaos.

To rule the world is to move to the frontier, and to be in trouble is to fight.

Yuan Xi understood that with the current productivity, if he wanted to restore the world's order, he would have to cut the population by more than half.

Productivity is a very complicated thing. It does not mean that the introduction of a few technologies from previous generations can bring the productivity of feudal society to the level of modern society in just a few decades. That situation can only exist in delusions.

Yuan Xi said so much because he wanted to use Zhuge Liang's wisdom to see if he could find a way out of his own imagination.

(End of this chapter)