A Millennium Aristocratic Family Starting from the Shang Dynasty

Chapter 546: Benefit the common people or cattle and horses?

Forty-one years after the founding of the Daqian Dynasty, Wang Yi died in Shangyang Palace. His posthumous title was: Hui, and his temple name was Zhongzong. He was called Emperor Xiaohui, Zhongzong of the Daqian Dynasty.

Loving the people well and being generous is called Hui; being generous and not being harsh is called Hui; being virtuous and prestige is called Hui; being beneficial to all generations is called Hui.

[Wang Yi died. This is the sixth emperor in your family. He reigned for forty-one years. He had the courage to reform and open up the Xia. He brought the declining Daqian to glory again and reopened the Xia. The road to open up outwards once again enfeoffed the Xia, allowing the light of civilization in the Xia to continue to spread outwards. His efforts allowed many originally barbaric lands to be integrated into Zhuxia, leaving his own mark on history.

The income is being settled, you have gained a lot of luck, and you have obtained an earth-level prop: the Heavenly Punishment Order. 】

[Earth-level props: Heavenly Punishment Order. After use, it can cause natural disasters such as hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, and droughts in designated areas. One to three natural disasters will appear randomly, with a minimum range of one kilometer and a maximum range of one thousand kilometers. The bigger it is, the more energy it consumes, so please use it with caution. 】

Heaven's punishment order? This thing can be called a nuclear weapon at any time. No, it is much more powerful than a nuclear weapon. It has a radius of one thousand kilometers and can directly destroy a country. Under normal circumstances, this thing would not be used, and it would only be used when it threatens the continuation of Zhuxia civilization.

Chao Cuo didn't know how he got out of the palace. He returned home in a daze. Thinking of the emperor's trust in him over the past decades, he couldn't help but feel sad.

I'm afraid that no one can completely trust him from now on.

It rained heavily, and the entire city of Luoyang was wet. The raindrops fell on the tiles, then slid down the eaves, and then gathered on the stone slabs to form a stream, and finally flowed into the Luoshui River outside the city.

Chao Cuo felt a chill coming over him as a slight chill penetrated into his bone marrow, and he felt sleepy.

The posthumous affairs of Emperor Daxing were successfully concluded, the new emperor ascended the throne, and nothing seemed to change in the world. The new emperor did not change any of the previous emperor's policies. He still followed Xiao Gui and Cao Sui, and implemented reforms step by step.

This also made Chao Cuo breathe a sigh of relief. He was now afraid that the new emperor would want to do something great, surpass his father, and become an eternal king. Then he took action himself and directly forced the reform. Governing a big country is like cooking a small one, so reform cannot be rushed.

Especially the current situation, which looks peaceful on the surface, but who knows what the people below who are dissatisfied with the reform think? Will they take the opportunity to cause trouble?

Other aspects of the reform will continue to be deepened, but the aspect of the pioneering nobles still needs to be carefully restricted, and the reins cannot be let go, allowing those pioneering nobles to explore, expand, and increase their strength. If it continues like this, it is very likely that it will become a trend that cannot be lost.

Therefore, the reins must be tied to the pioneering nobles, but the reins cannot be tied too tightly. If the reins are too tight, the pioneering nobles will be in danger of being destroyed. If the reins are tied too loosely, the tail will not fall off, and it may even bite its owner.

There are several people who did this in real history. During the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, Anlushan was afraid and did not dare to rebel because Li Linfu was the prime minister. However, during the reign of Yang Guozhong, Anlushan expanded rapidly. , and it didn’t take long for him to do the opposite.

The same was true for Li Chengliang, the warlord of Liaodong in the late Ming Dynasty. When he was alive, he suppressed Liaodong. After his death, his son could not suppress the situation, and Liaodong rebelled. Not many people can grasp the middle degree. Now the court is also using this method, and he is also afraid that the pioneering nobles will not lose their tail.

Although Wang Cheng did not trust Chao Cuo like his father, he still let him take charge of the overall situation, but he only inquired about Chao Cuo's policies. Wang Cheng's approach was because he wanted to learn how to govern the country from Chao Cuo.

Not only that, he also ordered people to understand all the policies implemented by Chao Cuo in the past twenty years and the situation before and after the implementation of these policies. He wanted to study seriously. At the same time, he also asked Chao Cuo to share his experience in governing the world. Borrow it to read.

Chao Cuo was naturally very happy to see that the emperor was so eager to learn, and immediately sent various documents that he had annotated over the years to Wang Cheng for study.

After seeing so many files, decrees and summaries of the situation before and after the administration, Wang Cheng was greatly benefited. Running a country is not a joke or playing house. If you issue a decree, thousands of people will be affected. This One of the mistakes was that countless families were broken up and people died.

It's like taxing a court. If no physical objects are collected, but all silver and copper coins are collected, the court will be relaxed, but what about the people? People need to sell grain and cloth for money before they can use the money to pay taxes.

The common people only sell grain one or two months after the harvest, and the court also collects taxes at this time. In this era, those who have a lot of money to purchase grain and a place to store and transport grain are not nine out of ten, but they are all local powerful families, nobles, and official families.

Only they have the financial resources, connections, and place. At this time, as long as these people have dark hearts and suppress prices, what will happen to the people who sell food? These people have almost complete control over the local economy and politics. If it were not for the strong power of the Daqian court, it would basically be the result of government orders not going to the countryside.

Now Daqian can make government orders smoothly because the imperial court killed and exiled who knows how many people.

In real history, how many times had there been a bumper harvest but the people were still hungry? Is it true that cheap grain hurts farmers? Someone is deliberately trying to keep the grain low and hurt the farmers! It is not an anecdote that people starve to death in good years, but it actually exists.

They know very well that if the people have surplus grain, it will be difficult for them to take advantage of it after the people have a good harvest next year. If they can't control those common people, how can they dominate and bless them? How can they suck blood from those common people?

The method they use is to boil frogs in warm water, suck blood and exploit them bit by bit. They will create clever names to make those people bear heavy loans, and then squeeze them bit by bit, allowing you to slowly pay back the money throughout your life, or even throughout your life. If it is not finished, let your son and grandson continue to pay it back.

They don't directly knock the people's bones, suck out their marrow, and squeeze them to death, not because they are kind and conscientious, but because they are worried that after forcing people to a dead end, those people will directly use the sword of the common people and bleed five steps.

From their point of view, their lives are too valuable to compete head-on with these common people, not to mention that a little bit of squeeze will make longer profits and gain some good reputation. When the time comes to build a bridge, pave a road, and give out porridge, they will be the village sages, a good family, and the county magistrates.

What do those common people look like to them? It’s leeks, supplies, cattle and horses.

(End of this chapter)