Three Kingdoms: I rely on system loopholes to survive

The next morning, Zhong Ping woke up refreshed and carrying a cane, he went to find Sun Qian to ask for people to quarry stones. Liu Bei put Zhong Ping's strategy that night aside for the time being and returned to the government office to continue handling official business.

Sun Qian and Jian Yong, along with a group of subordinates, gathered the misers from each village and worked together for four or five months. They finally completed the re-sorting and revision of the household registration books of Guangxin and the three surrounding counties. In Datang Township, Guangxin County alone, there were originally 400 households registered, but after checking the hidden households and escaped households, there were as many as 625 households re-registered.

Household registration has always been closely related to the tax system. As soon as Sun Qian finished the inspection, he sent the newly compiled household registration book to Guo Yuan.

Cangwu's original tax system was one in thirty. Guoyuan asked the original and newly appointed county magistrates of each county to send the original accounts of previous years to Guangxin. Originally, Guoyuan had more than thirty clerks available, but in the past few months, carts pulling wooden calves and bamboo books came every day, and the treasury alone was filled with two.

Guo Yuan had no choice but to requisition the inner room where two clerks lived, and borrowed ten veteran clerks from Cheng Bing before he could barely sort out the tax system of the entire Cangwu County for the past two years. He expected that the actual tax collection must be higher than one in thirty, but he did not expect these people to come up with so many names.

The land tax alone gave rise to cloth tax, hunting tax, fishing tax, etc. On the surface, there were few people working in the fields in Cangwu, and the rest made a living by fishing and hunting. Naturally, those who had no land should offset the land tax with production. In fact, fishing and hunting were included in the taxation, that is, those who did not farm had to pay two taxes at the same time, not to mention population tax, customs tax, commercial tax, etc. It is no wonder that there were so many hidden households and escaped households, and there were also people who voluntarily became slaves in order to avoid taxes.

Guo Yuan originally thought that Cangwu had a lot of work to do and that the tax should be relaxed to a rate of one in forty. He did not expect that the people were so evil. He only looked at the account book for one year and knew in his heart that although every entry was clearly written therein, the officials did not fail to exploit the people when they actually collected taxes. It was still unknown whether the burden on the people could be reduced by simply reducing taxes.

Therefore, he still used the tax system of taking one out of thirty, but he strictly defined and classified the various taxes, and clearly stated how much should be collected, and whether it should be rice, linen, silk, game or fish. Taking into account that it was difficult to unify the standards for game and fish, Guo Yuan specified that the market price could be used to offset the tax, so as to minimize the space for officials to set up names and extract benefits.

Sun Qian had a rare moment of leisure now, and the misers from several nearby villages had not left either. Zhong Ping came at the right time. When the misers heard that it was a matter of river management, they started talking to each other. They said that fifteen households in my village and twenty households in his village should send out men, and together they would gather about a hundred strong men, and send them to the mountains to mine stones in the next two days.

Although the misers did not know Zhong Ping's identity, they saw that he was getting along casually with Sun Qian, and they respected him in their hearts. They did not dare to accept Zhong Ping's gift and left one after another.

Zhong Ping made some calculations in his mind. Together with the craftsmen who had been quarrying stones before, he now had more than 150 people, which was considered a small scale. He could start clearing the ground next month.

He had already determined the locations for the foundations of the two places, but the results of several soil samplings were not satisfactory. After all, the soil was too soft. If he wanted to build a solid foundation, he had to clear the soil and replace it, and use some sand and gravel to stabilize the soil.

"Gongyou, how is the exploration of sulfur and other minerals that I talked to Zini about earlier?"

Zhong Ping thought that it would take three to five years to build the sluice gate at a normal speed, so he chose to use a shortcut.

"Zini was very busy. Later, the Lord Public Security asked De Shu to handle this matter. Wait for me to send someone to ask him."

Sun Qian called a dark-skinned boy forward and whispered a few words to him. The boy nodded, performed an awkward salute, and flew out.

Zhong Ping vaguely heard a few syllables, which sounded like the local dialect, and glanced at the young man with some interest.

"This man is called Xian Man, a servant of the local Xian clan. When I was investigating the hidden households, the Xian clan and other clans voluntarily released a group of slaves and servants. They were all young and strong barbarians. Now they are all registered as local residents. I saw that this young man was smart and could walk very fast, so I took him by my side as a messenger."

Sun Qian took the initiative to explain.

"No wonder this young man is barefoot and has his head wrapped." This Xian sounded somewhat familiar to Zhong Ping. He thought for a moment and remembered the few acres of rice fields he saw when he left the city before. They were said to belong to Xian.

The young man was indeed fast on foot. Soon he returned like the wind with a pile of letters. Because he was barefoot, he ran so briskly that the sound of his footsteps was almost inaudible.

Xian Man talked a lot to Sun Qian in a gibberish, and Zhong Ping was confused and could only understand a few simple words like "he", "mountain" and "river".

Sun Qian opened a letter and nodded as he read it. When he drew the third one, he said "hmm", as if he saw the content he wanted to read. He walked to Zhong Ping in three or two steps, handed the letter in his hand to Zhong Ping, and waved his hand to let Xian Man go.

"In the southeast, there is a mountain named Ben. On its sunny side, red gold and chalk grow together. On its shady side, there is iron. About ten miles to the west, there is a mountain named Cuiming. There are many snakes on the mountain. On its shady side, there is a lot of red copper. There is water surrounding it, and blue jade grows in the water."

Zhong Ping quietly took a breath of hot air. Wow, it turns out that the map I drew is really useful. Thanks to Brother Tong for the gift, the distribution of mineral resources is still reliable.

“Why is there no sulfur?”

Seeing that Zhong Ping didn't care about gold, iron, jade, and stones at all, but kept asking about sulfur, Sun Qian couldn't help but persuade him: "Bo Heng, you haven't even reached adulthood yet, why are you so eager to learn Taoism? Taking pills and practicing medicine are not the right way after all..."

He also heard that Zhong Ping had some method of submitting to the Tao, which allowed him to fast without eating any food, but he was quite disapproving of it.

Zhong Ping knew that Sun Qian had misunderstood, but he had no way to explain to Sun Qian that he wanted to develop black powder. He could only look serious and said, "Don't worry, Gongyou. This sulfur will be very useful for repairing the sluice. It's not my intention to seek the truth. Please keep an eye on it for me. If there is any news, please let me know."

"Even so, I will go see De Shu later and talk to him in person."

Sun Qian still trusted Zhong Ping very much. Seeing Zhong Ping's serious expression, he took this matter to heart.

"Hey, Xianhe is here just in time. Is there any news from the Second General and the Third General?"

Zhong Ping had just said goodbye to Sun Qian and was about to go out when he happened to run into Jian Yong coming back, so Zhong Ping asked him a question casually.

Jian Yong saw that Zhong Ping was wearing a short brown suit and carrying a walking stick. He thought that Zhong Ping was going to go up the mountain, so he smiled and said, "Not only did the Second General send a letter back in the past few days, but I also have a new piece of news that has not been spread. If Bo Heng heard it, he would be shocked."

Zhong Ping was curious when he heard this, but he knew that Jian Yong was deliberately teasing him, so he asked Guan Yu first: "Can you tell me about the situation in Jiaozhi first?"

Seeing that Zhong Ping was not fooled, Jian Yong pretended to be disappointed and patted Zhong Ping on the back: "Bo Heng, sometimes you are not as interesting as Gong You."

"That Shi Xie is indeed a capable leader." He stopped joking and quickly got to the point: "According to what the two generals said, he has his own rules when marching. When facing the rebellion of the Fan brothers, he was defeated but the army remained united. He summoned the soldiers suddenly at night but the formation did not break up. Just looking at these two things, we can see his ability to lead the army."

Zhong Ping seemed to be thinking about something.

"Furthermore, the taxes in his area were collected at one-thirtieth rate, and the people showed no fear when they saw the army stationed there, and often offered wine and food to lead the way. From this, it can be seen that Shi Xie's governance of Jiaozhi was no less than that of the lord in the past."

Jian Yong spoke highly of Shi Xie, but there was no trace of worry between his brows. Zhong Ping guessed that Jian Yong would definitely use a "but" as a transition and talk about Shi Xie's shortcomings.

Most people would have done what Zhong Ping wanted, but Jian Yong didn't follow the usual path. Perhaps he was determined to see Zhong Ping lose his composure, so he made a sharp turn in his next sentence: "Bo Heng, do you know that last night, Lü Bu was defeated by Cao Cao and wanted to go to Yangzhou to seek refuge with Yuan Shu, but was rejected. He was left in a state of despair and fled to Jiangxia with only a hundred cavalrymen?"

Zhong Ping stroked his chin and said, "Wen Hou is quite a runner... Did he take the small path again this time?"

Jian Yong was stunned: "Could it be that Bo Heng got the news before me?"

Zhong Ping shook his head, thinking that Cao Cao had been fighting Lu Bu for such a long time. It seemed that what he heard when he left Xudu before was true. It might be Han Sui who instigated it. However, since he didn't hear any news of fighting, most likely Ma Teng still followed the old path in history...

But now it seems that Lu Bu is going to be the first runaway king in the Eastern Han Dynasty?
Zhong Ping's thoughts jumped, and when he thought of this, he couldn't help but smile.

Whether Lu Bu can gain a foothold in Jingzhou depends on when Liu Biao dies. If Lu Bu is really lucky and Liu Biao dies in the next few days, Lu Bu may be able to make a comeback in Jingzhou. If not... this time he will probably be unable to escape.

(End of this chapter)