Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 761 The Pain of the People

After hearing Zhuge Liang's ideas, Yuan Xi was extremely happy, because Zhuge Liang is a rare compound talent. He not only made achievements in domestic affairs and military affairs, but also made remarkable inventions in engineering technology. In this era, it can be said that Extremely rare.

His suggestion just now coincides with the tactics of later generations. If he cooperates with the corresponding tactics, it might really cause Jiangdong to suffer a big loss!

Thinking of this, he said: "I think Kong Ming's idea is good."

"In this way, Kong Ming will go back to supervise the production of the trebuchet, and at the same time be fully responsible for the deployment and deployment of troops."

"Bo Yan, as a supervisor, is responsible for checking for deficiencies and filling them up. If he has any ideas, he will discuss them with Kong Ming in a timely manner. If something important comes up, both of them will be undecided. Kong Ming's idea will come first, but at the same time, Kong Ming will take the main responsibility."

After hearing this, everyone leaned down to accept the order. Seeing that everything was well arranged, Yuan Xi finally said: "It's a pity for Li Shu."

"Go to Wancheng and negotiate with Jiangdong in exchange for his body to be buried with dignity."

"I remember he has two sons, one in Youzhou and one in Shouchun, right?"

"Send someone to ask for a posthumous title, and ask the Jianghuai nobles to give up two positions to the family of Cao Cao."

"If they dare to have any objections, please Mr. Fengxiao, please give them some color."

After hearing this, Guo Jia smiled and said: "Don't worry, my lord, these families are all very adaptable to the changing circumstances, so how can they risk their lives?"

Everyone knew that Yuan Xi had spent thousands of gold to buy horse bones and knock down mountains to slay tigers. Li Shu's two sons were the first among Yuan Xi's subordinates to inherit the throne, and no one was jealous. After all, Li Shu had done enough for Yuan Xi. Things deserve this seal.

Yuan Xi also used this incident to show everyone that he would not let down those who worked for him. Finally, Yuan Xi said: "The guarantor is on alert, always pay attention to the movements in Guandu and Qingzhou, and be prepared to fight on both sides."

After hearing this, everyone followed the order and left. Yuan Xi suddenly felt free and at a loss what to do.

He was extremely reassured by both Lu Xun and Zhuge Liang, and with Guo Jia's help, if he interfered with specific affairs in the early stage of preparations for the war, it would be a disservice. It seemed that he might be a lot more relaxed these days.

After everyone dispersed, Lu Lingqi said she wanted to find Xiao Qiao, while Yuan Xi sat alone in the room, looking at the map in trance.

He himself found it unbelievable that he could reach this point. Although there were many setbacks, and the territory was sparsely fought, and it looked like he couldn't connect pieces here and there, no one in the world dared to look down on Yuan Xi.

Although Yuan Xi's territory had many problems, other princes had even more problems. Although Cao Cao was very powerful and had many advisers and generals under his command, and he also held the emperor hostage, he had been fishing in the past two years and drained the Yanzhou and Yuzhou Sili areas under his rule. There are also great hidden dangers in tapping the war potential like a pith.

The foundation of Yuzhou's Sili Cao Cao is unstable, and it is not obvious yet, but Yanzhou has basically turned into a large farming camp, and most of the civilian households have been forcibly converted into military and civilian villages.

Regardless of the fact that military settlements are more excessive than the military system of the Qin Dynasty during the war, after all, those who choose to be soldiers are those who have no choice but to sacrifice their lives for survival, but civilian settlements are very interesting.

Cao Cao's farmland system at the beginning was very deceptive. Although the taxes seemed higher, they were not high enough for the hungry people to refuse.

However, as the people moved into farming, Cao Cao's officials made a trick. If a household did not have oxen to plow the fields, they could exchange half of the rent for the right to use the oxen.

Note that this is the right to use, not ownership. A cow may be used by several or even a dozen households, and it can be exchanged for half of the annual tax for each household, which can be regarded as a huge profit.

As for the source of the cattle, it is said that after Cao Cao defeated the millions of Yellow Turbans, he obtained hundreds of thousands of cattle. In order to promote production, he rented them to private households.

It doesn’t matter whether anyone believes this statement. Anyway, the fact in Yanzhou is that the farming households have no cattle, so they are forced to rent cattle to plow their land.

But this rent tax is really outrageous. Compared with Liu Che's order to rent public land to the people during Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, and the tax collected was 1 in 15, the ratio of Cao Cao's farmland to 5 in 10 was too high, so high that renting cattle was a losing business. .

So there must be some people who will refuse to rent cattle and choose to plow the fields with their own manpower, right?

And the proportion of people who have this idea should be quite large, or even quite high. After all, wouldn’t it be good to eat half of the food in your own stomach?

But unfortunately, this idea does not work. Renting cattle is just an excuse to collect rent. Tax is mandatory.

This is the truth about how Cao Cao harvested millions of grains when he was working in a county in Xuchang, and within five years all his granaries were overflowing.

This method of cattle renting was also learned by later generations. Starting from Zhu Wen of the Later Liang Dynasty, the Later Tang Dynasty, the Later Jin Dynasty, and the Later Han Dynasty followed suit one after another, each one more outrageous than the other. It was not abolished until Guo Wei of the Later Zhou Dynasty.

The farming system was not initiated by Cao Cao. It existed in the Western Han Dynasty and the Eastern Han Dynasty. It was first initiated by Zhao State during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. Liu Bang and Liu Che implemented it in the border areas to defend against the Huns. It was introduced to the Central Plains in the Eastern Han Dynasty, and the targets of farming were changed from serving farmers to criminals and prisoners.

At this time, in the late Han Dynasty, Cao Cao was not the first to implement the farming system. Fu Xie, the prefect of Hanyang, was ten years earlier. Gongsun Zan also implemented farming during his lifetime and obtained a large amount of grain. But Cao Cao combined it with slavery and played tricks. The people in the villages under his rule did not have the civil rights of the common people, so they could be distributed and disposed of at will by Cao Cao.

This is a set of "Scholar Family System" with hostage coercion as its core concept. Soldiers in the field are called "Shi", their descendants are called "Shi Xi", their wives are called "Shi Xi", and their families are called "Shi Xi". "Shijia".

As long as you become a "scholar", you will no longer be a free citizen for generations to come. Your descendants will all be military slaves and serfs of the Cao Wei regime. Moreover, the wives and children of scholars will be treated as hostages by the court and collectively controlled to work elsewhere. Labor produces.

Cao Cao also formulated a strict "Law on the Exile of Scholars". If any camp residents fled, the court would kill their wives and children, and in serious cases, the entire clan could be exterminated.

Therefore, Cao Cao's soldiers are not weak in fighting will. After all, he died in battle. Although his wife and daughter will be assigned to others, at least they can leave offspring. But if he escapes, not only his wife and daughter, but also the whole family will be destroyed.

This series of moves made Cao Ying's soldiers fight like mad dogs. Unless Cao Ying's generals gave instructions to retreat, most of them died in the battle and did not dare to retreat. This was why Yuan Xi had a huge headache when encountering Cao Jun.

Later, Shu and Wu also implemented the farming system, but the effect was far less good than what Cao Cao did, because it was not as perfect as what Cao Wei did.

Therefore, when the princes of the world faced Cao Cao, they had a much harder time than Cao Cao in terms of mobilizing troops and preparing food and grass, because everyone generally used the Han system of 1 in 30 taxes, even if they were criticized for being extremely extravagant. Yuan Shu, who is lustful, can only take one out of ten when he goes to the extreme.

Moreover, Cao Cao not only attacked the farming households, but also revised the taxes for the common people who were registered as households. "When the Yuan family was first established, the capital of Ye was established, and the land was rented for four liters of millet per mu, two pieces of household silk and two kilograms of cotton, and the rest were not allowed. Good at prosperity, hiding the strong and endowing the weak.”

In a normal year, the ratio of four liters of millet to one in thirty is almost the same, but the focus of this tax is on two pieces of silk and two pounds of cotton.

As the currency collapsed at the end of the Han Dynasty, the equivalent of silk cotton was used for bartering. One piece of silk was equivalent to about two thousand yuan, and the normal price of one stone of grain was thirty to eighty yuan. However, production was destroyed in the late Han Dynasty, and one stone per mu was common. In some cases, the initial price of these two pieces of silk would require a household to offset it with the harvest of hundreds of acres of land. Of course, they could also spin it themselves, but the calculated amount would be extremely heavy.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of additional taxes. There are also various additional miscellaneous taxes. Although Wei Shu does not write the specific contents, some can be inferred from Wu Shu.

According to records in the Book of Wu, the state of Wu had dozens of miscellaneous taxes such as rice, cloth, etc., and it was stated that this practice copied Cao Wei's farming and nine-grade policies. If the zero and zero sums were added up, the farmers could keep two out of ten outputs. That’s pretty good.

Not only that, in addition to taxes, all corvées were inevitable. Cao Wei had many construction projects, especially the excavation of rivers in order to conquer Shu and Wu. The labor force at home was even more stretched.

The last point is that Cao Wei did not divide the fields.

When the Chinese dynasties were founded, they all divided land for landless peasants, but Cao Wei did it. The land equalization system, tax collection per household, and fixed tax system were very similar to the state of the collapse of the rent-yong system in the late Tang Dynasty. However, this was the founding of Cao Wei. state, so the Sima family did not encounter much resistance when they usurped Wei. A large part of the reason was that Cao Wei wanted to die himself, and everyone from the nobles to the common people was unpopular with him.

Later, when Liu Bei led his people across the river, the death rate of the people fleeing was very high. In the event of a disaster, more than half of the people would be killed or injured within a few hundred miles. But even so, the people still had to flee from Cao Wei's rule, which explains some problems.

In the late Han Dynasty, some princes collected more than half of all the exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes, but Cao Cao collected half of the basic taxes and added exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes on top of the basic taxes. In the end, very little was left in the hands of the people.

This is the truth behind bones being exposed in the wild and no roosters crowing for thousands of miles. With this kind of tax, who can have enough to eat for a few years and have enough time to raise chickens?

After that, the Jin Dynasty abolished the farmland system and adopted the land occupation system. The gentry invaded and occupied the common people's land on a large scale. This was even more popular than in the late Han Dynasty. However, the people did not complain too much about this. It was really because the farmland system of Cao Wei was so unpopular. To.

Although Yuan Xi understands this situation, he also knows that as long as Cao Cao survives these waves, he will enter a period of decline, but he does not know how long it will take for him to decline to defeat, and how many years and decades it will take.

So during this period, he had to find a way to withstand Cao Cao's offensive and bleed the opponent's blood at the same time. As he didn't understand economics very well, especially because he couldn't fully combine the productivity of the late Han Dynasty to come up with more effective countermeasures, he could only hope Place it on Zhuge Liang.

After all, from the perspective of later generations, although the Shu Kingdom was somewhat militaristic in its later period, its economy was already the healthiest among the three kingdoms.

And compared with the extravagance of the upper class of Wei and Wu, the people suffered especially. The officials of Shu under Zhuge Liang lived a relatively simple life, and the gap between them and the people was not very big. This was one of the important reasons why Yuan Xi admired Zhuge Liang.

He closed the slip in front of him, rubbed his eyes, and felt a little tired, so he stood up and walked out.

When he arrived at the atrium, Yuan Xi subconsciously walked towards the direction of Xiao Qiao's house. After taking two steps, he realized something was wrong and stopped.

The day before yesterday, he came to Shouchun and learned the news that Qiao Rui had passed away from Xiao Qiao, who was wearing sackcloth and mourning. At that time, he only comforted her with a few words, but did not talk about it in depth.

Now Yuan Xi wants to ask Qiao Rui what words he left before his death, but then he thinks that Lu Lingqi has passed away, and both parties have recently lost their parents. Although they can understand each other, they must be filled with tears and sorrow. It’s really not suitable for the past.

He thought for a while and then went to Feng's room. Sooner or later, Feng would know about Yuan Shu.

(End of this chapter)