At the end of Qin, I became a son of the plane

Chapter 395: Economic Overheating and Rapid Expansion
On the 20th day of the eleventh month of the ninth year of the Han Dynasty, Chang'an City, Prime Minister's Mansion
"Shu County, Ba County, Nan County, Jiujiang County, Hengshan County, Lujiang County, Dong County, Dong County, Xue County, Jibei County, Linzi County, so many counties want to increase workshops, my goodness, where do they get the money?"

The emperor Xu Fan was still attending classes at Mozi Academy, but the prime minister Zhou Zhang had already started to have a headache for the county governors below.

Chen Chui said: "The government's finances have grown very fast in the past two years, and the local counties can still squeeze out some money. They apply for coal mines, cement plants, textile factories and other small workshops. These workshops are not like steel mills, the investment cost is very low, and they do not need talent support from the government. The construction period of the workshop is also very short. According to the current situation, the investment can be recovered in 2-3 years."

Of course, there is one thing Chen Chui didn’t mention, which is that the results will be quick and the investment can be recovered in two to three years.

Unlike building a steel plant now, a 10-jin blast furnace takes more than half a year to build. Add in various supporting facilities and it will take at least a year to ignite the furnace. Due to the high cost, the payback period is also greatly increased.

Then a very strange scene appeared. As the blast furnaces of the Han Dynasty became larger and more advanced, fewer and fewer local governors wanted to apply to build steel mills.

If the court provides funding, it would be a pleasant surprise for them, but if it does not, they would not want to touch such a project.

They are more in favor of short-term, fast-paced projects. The key is that these projects can be supported by their local small treasury, and they have more freedom without the imperial court to control them.

This wave of Han prosperity just happened to enrich the local government's treasury, allowing them to afford these small projects.

The fiscal tax division between the Han Dynasty court and local governments was very simple and crude, 70% to the court and 30% to the local governments. Local governments also had some official land for daily expenses of local government offices and some official land as salaries for local officials.

Of course, the situation in each county was different. For example, small border counties with few people and much land still retained official farmland, but in densely populated counties such as Guanzhong, Sanchuan County, and Chen County, these fields were divided up.

Local daily expenses and officials' salaries are all paid through taxation.

The Han Dynasty inherited the Qin system, and Xu Fan's life experience also made him a big government advocate. He was actually more adapted to the big government of the Qin Dynasty than people of this era.

But Xu Fan was more practical than the First Emperor. He understood the huge financial drain caused by the huge bureaucracy system. The Qin Dynasty was like a small horse pulling a big cart, which resulted in the collapse of the country.

Xu Fan greatly streamlined the Qin official system, eliminating many officials who exploited the people. The grassroots villages were mainly self-governing (I suddenly thought that the Hope Country actually had the Qin Dynasty's prison system, which was worthy of being the culmination of the dregs of the feudal era), forming the current Han official system.

Of course, even with a significant reduction in the number of officials, the Han Dynasty court still had far more officials than later feudal dynasties, and 30% of the taxes were only enough to barely support the local Han officials.

If local Han officials wanted to launch large projects, like renovating cities, building highways, tracks, and establishing workshops, they relied heavily on transfer payments from the Han court, so the Sage Council of the Han Dynasty had become increasingly intense in recent years.

Because there is one more workshop in the local area, the development of the local area will be accelerated and the fiscal revenue will increase. At the same time, the local prosperity will siphon off the surrounding counties with slower development, forming a Matthew effect where the strong get stronger.

After several years of the Sages' Meeting, the local county governors and the local sages have realized that they are on the same boat, and many old friends have become competitors in politics. Therefore, the fights between the Han county governors at the Sages' Meeting were particularly fierce, and many old friends fought each other at the Sages' Meeting.

But the Han Dynasty was different from the feudal dynasties of later generations. Compared with the unchanging feudal dynasties, the Han Dynasty, under the promotion of Xu Fan, had been in rapid change. The industrial development in the world was extremely fast. Any individuals and forces that hindered the development of the industry were crushed by Xu Fan. The speed of the Han Dynasty's industrial development had reached the speed of the first industrialization.

This led to a rapid increase in wealth throughout the country, and the taxation of the Han Dynasty was also on the rise. In less than ten years after the founding of the country, the taxation of the Han Dynasty increased threefold, a growth rate that was difficult for all feudal dynasties to achieve.

As the tide rose, the local counties of the Han Dynasty also had a lot of cash. After conquering the desert, the Han Dynasty opened up the upstream and downstream of the textile industry chain. In addition, the entire Han Dynasty was in a state of war prosperity. The local county magistrates watched the folk workshop owners make a fortune, and they were not to be outdone, so they also invested the local surplus in building workshops.

So Chen Chui, the Shaofu Ling, discovered that the number of workshops in the local area had increased explosively. He was worried about problems, so he had no choice but to find Prime Minister Zhou Zhang to report.

Zhou Zhang thought for a while and said, "This is the money saved by the local government to develop workshops. The imperial court cannot interfere, otherwise it will easily discourage the local Han officials from developing. Anyway, they can get their money back in two or three years, so let them do it themselves."

Zhang Cang, the chief strategist, immediately said, "Prime Minister, if the court does not care about the local governors, there may be big problems."

Then Zhang Cang explained, "I have studied the emperor's lecture notes these past two days. There is a paragraph that talks about the factors that affect prices. It talks about the relationship between the value of goods and prices. When goods are in short supply and demand is insufficient, prices rise. This is a seller's market, which is the same as the current situation."

As a Han official who wanted to advance himself, Zhang Cang naturally had to study the emperor's lecture notes in depth. Not to mention that the emperor himself was a master of learning, and his lecture notes were worthy of in-depth study.

Zhou Zhang said: "This shows that the emperor also thinks this is a good thing."

But Zhang Cang continued, "But the emperor also said that when supply exceeds demand, prices will fall. Just like the grain of our Great Han, during the war, the price of grain generally exceeded 30 coins, and even reached coins. But in the past two years, our Great Han has had good harvests, and the price of grain has dropped rapidly. Now it has generally fallen to coins per stone."

"According to the emperor, the grain production capacity of our Han Dynasty is in a stage of overcapacity, and the price is at the lowest value profit stage. If it is lower than 30 coins, farmers will not make money from farming, so they will take the initiative to reduce production. This is the same as the grain situation of our Han Dynasty in recent years. Farmers have switched to growing mulberry, hemp, soybeans, sugarcane and other cash crops."

"Now, the development of industry is the same as that of agriculture in our Han Dynasty. Local county governors see that building workshops can make money, so they are flocking to build various textile factories, flour mills, cement plants, coal mines, and brick kiln factories. More than 40 of the 50 counties in the world want to build these small workshops. In addition to the private workshops, I am worried that the goods produced by the workshops will also be in oversupply. If the price of goods and grains is reduced several times, then the goods produced by these workshops will definitely lose money or even cannot be sold. I dare not imagine how difficult it will be for the local government offices at that time."

Speaking of goods that cannot be sold, Zhang Cang suddenly had an idea and said, "This may be the economic crisis that the emperor mentioned."

Zhou Zhang hesitated and said, "This is just the emperor's assumption. Even if the goods cannot be sold now, they can be stored in the warehouse and sold again after a while. I don't think it's as exaggerated as the emperor said. Besides, it's profitable to open a workshop now. It can be recovered in three or two years. It's unreasonable for the court to not allow them to open it now."

There is one point Zhou Zhang has not discussed yet. When the time comes, the local county magistrates will use this as an excuse to ask the court to build them steel mills and machinery factories, which will be even more expensive. It is better to let them develop on their own now.

Zhou Zhang said: "Let the county governors decide the local affairs themselves. The court has more important things to do. We need to incorporate the Hexi area into the court, set up counties, and send officials.

This is the land that the imperial court spent 60 gold to purchase. If we fail to develop Hexi well, we will all be criminals of the Han Dynasty."

This year, the Han court focused on the Hexi region. Last year, the court covered the debts owed by Ji Bu and his men through tax reforms. This year, the court has been transporting grain, cloth, weapons and equipment from the Lantian granary to Hexi. Even 300 extremely precious artillery and mortars were transported to Ji Bu and his men for use in attacking enemies in the Western Regions.

In April, Ji Bu led the main force of the Hexi princes into the Western Regions. At the same time, Ji Bu handed over his vassal states in Hexi. The Han court set up Jincheng County and Wuwei County. The remaining territories still belonged to the rear base of the Hexi princes. They would not be handed over to the Han court until Ji Bu and his men had gained a firm foothold in the Western Regions.

But Hexi was a newly occupied territory. Ji Bu and his men went on an expedition to the desert and took away most of Hexi's population. Now if the Han Dynasty wants to gain a firm foothold in Hexi, it must coordinate military and political actions.

Zhou Zhang, the Prime Minister of the Han Dynasty, already held all the power, so he was extremely cautious about military power. Under normal circumstances, he would not contact Wu Sheng and Deng Zong in this way. However, this time, in order to bring Hexi into the rule of the Han Dynasty, military support was obviously indispensable.

Thinking of how he worked so hard on government affairs while Xu Fan was teaching a class with a group of merchants, Zhou Zhang was furious and said, "I am so busy in the Prime Minister's Mansion that I don't even have time to rest. Your Majesty is either wandering around or teaching people. There is no emperor in the world who has such an easy life."

Zhang Cang said: "It is because of your great ability, Prime Minister, that Your Majesty can rule impartially."

Zhou Zhang pointed to his prime minister's chief secretary and said, "Go find His Majesty and tell him that there will be a meeting of nine ministers tomorrow to discuss Hexi affairs. Please make sure His Majesty attends."

"Yes!" The next day, all the nine ministers of the Han Dynasty gathered in Zhangtai Palace. Even Wu Sheng, the head of the Taiwei Mansion Deng Zong, and veteran generals from the General's Mansion like Tian Zang participated.

The emperor ordered Zhang Cang to report the current situation of the two counties in Hexi, including data on population, number of cities, fields, grasslands, etc.

Judging from the data, the situation in Hexi is extremely bad. The total farmland of the two counties is only about one million acres, and there are only 23 registered households. There are quite a few cities, in total, but most of them are small towns that are not even as good as county towns. Except for the land area, all the data of Jincheng and Wuwei counties are not as good as a county in Guanzhong.

Zhou Zhang said: "The most important thing for the court now is to settle people in the two places and cultivate land to guard the border. Otherwise, the land that the court spent 60 gold to buy may be occupied by the surrounding Hu people. And the most important thing now is to relocate the people to Hexi."

Xu Fan said, "The world has been peaceful for several years, and many children have grown up. If the court distributes land equally in Hexi, I think many people who lack land will be willing to go there."

Equal distribution of land is definitely the most powerful weapon of the Han people. If 100 acres of land are offered to them, few farmers can refuse.

But Zhang Cang said, "Your Majesty, if it was during the founding of the Han Dynasty, equal distribution of land would still be effective, but now the people are rich, they will not leave the Central Plains for a hundred acres of land in Hexi."

Shusun Tong laughed and said, "Not all the people in the Han Dynasty are rich. There are always poor people. It is not difficult to recruit tens of thousands of people from the whole Han Dynasty."

However, Xiao He, the director of the Tongzheng Department, shook his head and said, "The key is that our Han Dynasty has been relocating people abroad in recent years, and it is really difficult to find tens of thousands of households.

Take Chen County, where I lived, for example. When a farmer's sons came of age, even if they had no land to share, it was easy to find a job in the city with a salary of 800 coins. A craftsman in Chen County earned nearly coins a year. The local people would not care about the hundred acres of fertile land in Hexi. In remote and poor counties, where there were more people than land, the people could just share the land locally and did not need to go to Hexi at all.

Xu Fan looked at the internal historian Ye Teng and said, "The population of Guanzhong has increased rapidly in recent years. According to the statistics above, the population has increased by two million. Is there no one among these people who wants land?"

Ye Teng said: "Your Majesty, Guanzhong is under the emperor's feet. Who would be willing to leave Guanzhong and go to a cold and miserable place like Hexi? Not to mention 100 acres of land, even if it's 200 acres of land, I'm afraid few people in Guanzhong are willing to go to Hexi."

The palace fell silent for a moment. The Han Dynasty had been expanding and immigrating continuously over the years, but the rate of population increase obviously could not keep up with the rate of land expansion.

Wu Sheng said: "Your Majesty, let's follow the policy of our great Han Dynasty in previous years. For the next two years, we will suspend the exile policy in Nanyang and exile all the prisoners of our great Han Dynasty to Hexi. In three years, it will not be a problem to increase the population of Hexi by 100,000."

Wu Sheng had no choice but to think of this method of robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Zhou Zhang thought about it and shook his head, saying, "Hexi is too close to Guanzhong, and there is no natural barrier to block it. These criminals can easily escape back to the Han Dynasty and spread cholera in Guanzhong. This is not advisable."

Obviously, the human resources of the Han Dynasty are not enough to support the development of Hexi, and the previous methods are no longer sufficient.

Xu Fan recalled how future generations would deal with this situation and found that the most suitable policy was military settlement.

So Xu Fan thought about it and said, "This year, when the Han Dynasty recruits soldiers, we should recruit 100,000 more soldiers to settle in Jincheng County and Wuwei County to cultivate the land and guard the border. We should improve the infrastructure of the two places. As long as the infrastructure is well built, people will naturally move to the two places."

Zhou Zhang found this to be the best method. He thought for a moment and said, "If it is a military settlement, the governors of the two places should preferably be experienced generals of our Han Dynasty. There are quite a few Qiang people in Hexi. If they see that our Han Dynasty is left empty in Hexi, they may take advantage of the opportunity and move in."

Xu Fan said: "The Prime Minister is right. At this time, Jincheng and Wuwei still need experienced veterans to serve as governors."

Then Xu Fan looked at the old generals in the General's Mansion who had followed him to establish the country, and there were really not many of them.

It can only be said that the feudal system has its pros and cons. A large number of generals were enfeoffed outside the Han Dynasty, which reduced the influence of these meritorious officials on the Han court, but there were not many veteran generals left who could fight.

Xu Fan asked, "Tian Zang, Lu Jia, are you two willing to go to Hexi to guard the border for the court?"

Tian Zang, Lu Jia stepped out and said, "I am willing."

Xu Fan said: "Appoint Tian Zang as the governor of Wuwei County and Lu Jia as the governor of Jincheng. The two of you must firmly control the Hexi area for the court."

"promise!"

Then Xu Fan looked at Deng Zong and said, "How are Ji Bu and his men doing in the Western Regions? Have they established a firm foothold?"

Deng Zong replied: "Duke Ji led the princes of Hexi into the Western Regions and wiped out 12 Western Regions, including the Shan Kingdom, Cheshi Kingdom, Cheshi Houcheng Kingdom, Pulei, Pulei Hou Kingdom, and Xiaowan Kingdom."

Wu Shengyou was surprised and asked, "Brother Ji Bu destroyed 12 countries in less than half a year?"

In the eyes of the Han generals, even a small country could only be like South Korea. Ji Bu and his men went to the Western Regions for only half a year, and destroyed 12 countries, which means an average of two countries per month. If we take into account the time Ji Bu and his men spent marching for thousands of miles, it would take less than 10 days to destroy a country on average. This efficiency is simply unbelievable.

Deng Zong said: "Many small countries in the Western Regions are tribes, and they don't even have cities. There are small countries with cities, but they only have one or two small cities."

Xu Fan smiled and said, "Although the Western Regions are vast, the conditions are harsh. There are indeed no great powers. A country with only three to five thousand people dares to claim to be a king. A country with hundreds of thousands of people is already a hegemonic country in the Western Regions. However, such a country could not withstand the attack of the Great Yuezhi and the Xiongnu. This shows how weak they are."

Then Xu Fan ordered people to find the map of the Western Regions sent by Ji Bu and his men, and mark the current location of Ji Xin and his men. He found that Ji Bu and his men were attacking with great force, and occupied one third of the Western Regions in just half a year.

Looking at this powerful land, Xu Fan smiled and said, "Ji Bu and his men are doing a good job. At this rate, it won't take five years for the entire Western Region to belong to the Han Dynasty."

Zhang Liang saw the map of the Western Regions and shook his head helplessly, saying, "The Western Regions are too far away. It is difficult for the court to support Ji Bu and his men. Now the situation in the Western Regions can only be solved by Ji Bu and his men fighting on their own."

Xu Fan said: "Not only is Ji Bu a veteran who has experienced hundreds of battles, but the 300 artillery pieces given to him by the imperial court alone are not something that a small country in the Western Regions can resist."

Zhang Liang said: "I am not talking about military support, but population support. Ji Bu and his people only have a few hundred thousand people, while there are millions or even more barbarians around the Western Regions. If the court did not support Ji Bu, it would not be Ji Bu and his people who became Han people, but the people of our great Han Dynasty who were assimilated by the barbarians."

"The territory of the Han Dynasty is now more than five times larger than that of the Qin Dynasty, including Liaodong, the Great Desert, Nanyang, and now the Western Regions. The expansion of the Han Dynasty has reached its limit, and there is no population to support the sinicization of these expanding vassal states."

After thinking for a while, Zhang Liang said, "Your Majesty, the expansion of our Han Dynasty should stop. When the people of our Han Dynasty multiply and have enough people to fill these newly occupied fields, we can consolidate our current foundation."

In terms of the speed of expansion, the Han Dynasty was a completely high-end version of the Qin Dynasty. Zhang Liang was really worried that the same destructive collapse as the Qin Dynasty would befall the Han Dynasty.

(End of this chapter)