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

Chapter 422: The Story of Agui and the Choices of Youth
January of the 13th year of the Han calendar, Chang'an City.

After the meeting of sages, the Han Monthly Report began to publicize the importance of the military settlement policy, and told the people of the world a series of data to let them know the population pressure the world was facing.

Afterwards, the Han Dynasty court set a high tone for military reclamation, saying that it was opening up a new home so that future generations would not suffer.

The emperor also wrote an article in the Great Han Monthly, saying that Qianzhong and Nanyang regions were places where great achievements could be made, and called on the young people of the Great Han to go to these places to open up new homes.

The opera troupe has compiled new repertoires based on the deeds of the princes in various parts of the Han Dynasty to publicize the benefits of the land around the Han Dynasty to the vast rural areas, such as the black soil in Liaodong, where you can grow something by sticking a chopstick in it, the land in Qianzhong that produces two crops a year, and is rich in products, including sugarcane and tea plantations. If it is developed, it will be richer than the Central Plains. Hexi is vast and the land is easy to cultivate. It is also the only way for Western Regions caravans to pass. In Hexi, even selling water can make you rich, and Nanyang is rich and full of gold.

Chang'an City, Duli.

The villagers around were happily cleaning the stage, because a day ago, the county had issued a notice that the imperial opera troupe was coming to the countryside to perform, and they were required to prepare for the reception.

In the afternoon, the carriage of Xu Group arrived at Duliwai.

The villager Qin Jiang and the headman Huang Lei came to greet them.

Huang Lei asked with a smile: "I wonder what drama the leader has brought to us this time?"

Qin Jiang smiled and said, "My grandson's favorite play is Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai. I wonder if he will sing this scene today?"

The leader of the group smiled and said, "This time we are bringing a new opera called The Story of Agui."

"The True Story of Agui?" Qin Jiang was puzzled.

But Qin Qinjiang and the others knew the content of this new opera very well. It talked about how Guanzhong was in a prosperous era with a rapidly increasing population. The protagonist, Agui, after distributing land equally in Guanzhong, used his 100 acres of land to build a new house and get married. His wife was virtuous and capable, and gave birth to five children, three sons and two daughters. The family lived in harmony and the audience could feel Agui's smile from the bottom of his heart.

Qin Jiang smiled and said to Huang Lei: "This opera is great. It tells the stories of us ordinary people. This Agui is like the good boy in our Duli."

Agui's life is almost the same as that of the people in Duli. Since the founding of the Han Dynasty, the people in Guanzhong have not experienced wars, and their lives are getting better and better. Although the crisis last year also had an impact on Duli, the villagers at most have no place to work and earn less money.

The people of Duri moved from war to peace, and every farming household began to have many children. It was normal for a farming family in Duri to have five or six children, and seven or eight was not uncommon. On the contrary, families with only two or three children were very rare.

Of course, the presence of so many children is also related to the medical knowledge that Xu Fan brought from later generations.

Although Xu Fan is not a professional medical person, the Internet age has made everyone in the world extremely knowledgeable, and they have heard of all kinds of knowledge to a certain extent.

Xu Fan told the doctors of that time about the disinfection concepts of later generations, the increase in the appropriate childbearing age, the use of forceps, and the concept of caesarean section (the probability of death was still very high before penicillin was solved, but it was better than two deaths). At the same time, he summoned midwives from all over the world for training. The risk of childbirth began to plummet to less than 20% of the original risk. Even if there was a difficult delivery, forceps could save the life of the pregnant woman and prevent the tragedy of two deaths from happening.

Therefore, many families in Han have seven or eight people, and it is not uncommon for a family to have four or five children. Various factors have led to the rapid increase in Han's population. Although Han's registered population is only about 4 million, three-year-old children are not included in the household registration in this era, so Han's actual population data has long exceeded 400 million.

Agui is hardworking and has raised his five children to be plump and healthy over the past decade.

The people of Duri watched Agui's children grow older and older. Finally, when they came of age, Agui married his daughter to an honest farmer. He also built new houses for his three sons and found wives for them. Soon, Agui's family grew from three to more than a dozen people. It seemed like a perfect ending.

But conflicts arose at this time. Agui only had 100 mu of land and needed to feed a family of more than a dozen people. No matter how hard Agui's family worked, their lives were visibly getting worse. In the past, they had fish and meat on the table, but now there were only some cabbage and wild vegetables. Agui began to frown, and his three wives often quarreled over trivial matters (roughly the plot of the courtyard house, such as eating an extra piece of meat or stealing a chicken).
Seeing this scene, the people of Duri all frowned. This kind of thing often happened in their Duri.

Qin Jiang frowned and said to Huang Lei: "The court has no land to distribute now. I have always been worried whether the dozens of acres of land in the hands of the three boys in my family are enough to live on."

Huang Lei's face looked even uglier. His wife and he had five boys, who were not yet adults. But when they turned 5, they would also want to get married and start a family. His 20 acres of land was definitely not enough for these five boys. It was almost impossible to live a good life with 100 acres of land in Guanzhong.

The equal-field policy of the Han Dynasty had generally ended, and Guanzhong ended it in the 5th year of the Han calendar.

After the fifth year of the Han calendar, the young and strong who have reached adulthood can only continue to stay in their original families and continue to farm, but these young and strong adults have to start a family, build a new house, and raise their own children, so the family expenses will increase linearly, but the income will not.

Duli is not as extreme as in the opera, they can still go to the city to work, and even many people simply settle down in the city, but the villagers of Duli only need to see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 carrot heads in their homes. Suddenly they feel that today's Agui is tomorrow's self.

Just when the people of Duri were worried about Agui's future.

At this time the plot changed. The imperial court issued an order for land reclamation. Agui led his second and third sons to sign up for the reclamation and were allocated 400 acres of land in Hexi. Then he and his two sons worked hard and settled down in Hexi. The plot continued to show that Agui's grandsons began to marry and have children. The opera ended with the laughter of Agui's four generations living together.

Huang Lei suddenly realized at this time: "The opera troupe is cooperating with the court's reclamation policy."

Although Huang Lei understood what was going on, his inner worries did not decrease. As far as he was concerned, the most he could do was to send one son to Chang'an City to earn a good income, but what about the other four?
But he was a little hesitant about going to Hexi Village. After all, Guanzhong was the center of the world, and going to a wild place like Hexi to settle and cultivate was not a good choice no matter how you looked at it.

Huang Lei still has time to choose, after all, his eldest son is only 12 years old, but Qin Jiang's three sons are already adults. The economic situation is not good this year, and the three sons and their wives can only stay at home, quarreling all day long over trivial matters. He is under a lot of pressure now.

So right after the opera ended, Qin Jiang asked, "Captain, when we go to Hexi, can we really get 200 acres of land? Are these 200 acres of cultivated land or wasteland?"

The leader of the opera team said, "You also know that Hexi was purchased by the court from the princes. At the beginning, the people of the princes reclaimed some land, probably several million acres. The court has recruited some people to Hexi over the years, and now it is estimated that there are still millions of acres of land left. These fields can only be used on a first-come, first-served basis."

"But it doesn't matter if you go later. The court will provide you with farming tools and oxen, as well as reclamation troops to help you. There will be no taxes in the first three years of reclamation, and the court will also provide food subsidies in the first three years to ensure that you don't go hungry. Those who want to go to Hexi to reclaim wasteland, first go to your county to sign up, and then the court will arrange people to take you to Hexi." The opera troupe left Duli, but the influence they had in Duli did not subside. The people of Duli were a little worried about going to Hexi to reclaim wasteland, and they were also sad to see their children growing up.

This sorrow quickly spread throughout Guanzhong as the opera troupe continued to spread "The True Story of Agui".

On January 15th, the 13th year of the Han calendar, Chang'an City.

After the Sages Conference, the Colonization Order has been a hot topic in Chang'an City. To be sure, land is still somewhat attractive to farmers in Guanzhong, but it is not very attractive to the people of Chang'an City. They can earn more by just finding a job in Chang'an City than by digging for food on the land.

But they just wanted to settle in the frontier, and they would definitely not let even the city people like them go. They didn't want to give up their comfortable city life and settle in the frontier.

Many people in Chang'an were very worried that they would also be exiled to the frontier by the court. The various factions in Chang'an argued endlessly about this matter. Some thought that the court was being reckless and that there was no reason to seize city dwellers for land reclamation. But others argued that why didn't city dwellers go to the frontier for land reclamation? In short, it was very lively and the two factions were just about to fight. However, those who opposed the land reclamation order prevailed because it indeed harmed the interests of the people in Chang'an.

And at this moment, a new hot spot instantly suppressed the popularity of the reclamation order.

The tax inspector Zhou Bo led the tax collectors to the inner workshops under the emperor and issued a sky-high asset tax of 3.6 million yuan, which caused a sensation in the entire Chang'an City.

One reason was that the tax was so astonishingly high, and the other was that the people of Chang'an were surprised by Zhou Bo's audacity. Not only did he collect taxes from the emperor, but he also collected so much. Zhou Bo's courage was admirable.

But what amazed the people of Chang'an even more was that on the second day, they saw Zhou Bo leading the tax inspectors with hundreds of horse-drawn carriages to the headquarters of the Emperor's Inner Treasury.

The gossipers around Chang'an watched the tax collectors move the money out of the inner treasury headquarters in boxes. In order to let these gossipers see clearly, the money boxes were opened. They could see the boxes of copper coins, silver, gold, and all kinds of colorful lights shining so brightly that they could hardly open their eyes.

They watched with their own eyes as these boxes were loaded onto carriages, sealed, and then transported to the Han treasury.

"Even the emperor has given so much money to support the reclamation order, so how can we, the common people, be qualified to oppose the order of the court?"

After publicity by the Sages' Association and the Han Monthly Report, the people of Chang'an City all knew that the asset tax was an additional tax for the purpose of land reclamation, and the court had already publicized that all people in the Han Dynasty must bear the cost of land reclamation fairly.

Now that the Emperor of the Han Dynasty has set an example by paying 3.6 million yuan in asset taxes, it will be difficult for the people of Chang'an City to voice their opposition.

On January 20th, the 13th year of the Han calendar, in Chang'an City, Mozi Academy.

Xu Fan gave an open class here, and all the students from Mozi College flocked in.

Xu Fan looked at the students and smiled, "I think everyone knows about the Colonization Order."

"Yes!" the students answered loudly.

"Master, you are here to publicize the Colonization Order. You are the most elite group in the Han Dynasty. I will not tell you stories like "The True Story of Agui"."

The students burst into laughter. "The True Story of Agui" is an opera that is also available in Chang'an City. However, the students who can study at Mozi Academy generally have good family backgrounds, so it is really difficult for them to empathize with others, and the effect of the publicity is naturally limited.

"Master, I will tell you about the problems that the Han Dynasty is facing. The government office counted the number of people born last year, a total of 257 million, and due to various factors, the number of people who died in the Han Dynasty was about 37. That is to say, the population of the Han Dynasty will increase by 220 million a year, more than 10 million in 2000 years, and more than 20 million in 4000 years. But the actual number is higher than this, because the birth population of the Han Dynasty is still growing rapidly. In 30 years at most, the registered households of the Han Dynasty will exceed 2 million, and the population will reach 000 million.

Do you know what this population means? The Han people consume about 2 billion dan of grain and 000 million pieces of cloth a year. They also consume more than 500 million dan of meat, million dan of sugar, million dan of oil, and million dan of salt. "

"This number is just the minimum guarantee to ensure that the lives of the people of the Han Dynasty do not deteriorate. We also need to build a harmonious world. Everyone's life must become better and better. They should eat more food and meat, and wear more clothes."

This requires that our Han people have more land to grow crops, more land to grow mulberry and hemp, more land to grow cash crops, and more ships to go fishing and whaling in the sea.

And how much land do we, the Han people, have now?
Excluding the territories of princes and overseas territories, the figure given is 970 million acres.

Are these lands abundant? A lot. They are enough to feed and water the 4000 million people of our Han Dynasty. They can have meat every few days. Your parents don’t have to use less salt when cooking, and they can have some sugar to eat during festivals.

But this number is too small, and it is not enough to sustain the current lives of hundreds of millions of people in the Han Dynasty. If we do not change the status quo, let alone building a world of great harmony, the people of this world will fall back into the days of hunger and starvation, and people will starve to death in our Han Dynasty again.

The imperial court had no shortage of land. In the vast Liaodong, Hezhong, Qianzhong, and Nanyang, the imperial court had countless lands waiting for everyone to develop.

"Students should not just stay in the academy to learn knowledge, but also use your knowledge to change the world. The four fields of our Han Dynasty are where you can make achievements and establish your careers. If you develop these places into the homeland of our Han Dynasty, your descendants and history will remember your contributions."

"You are the vanguard of the Han Dynasty. You must find a way out for the people of the Han Dynasty and go to the most difficult places to build achievements."

"The Master gives you eight words: a vast world with great potential."

The students of Mozi Academy were worried about the future of the Han Dynasty after hearing the data Xu Fan said, but they were excited by the following words and said excitedly: "There is a vast world with great potential."

(End of this chapter)