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

Chapter 608: Internal strife among the Xiongnu and drought in Changsha County
Zhang Pijiang knew that the Xiongnu would strongly oppose it, so he said: "I, the Han Dynasty, purchased these factories for the profit, and do not require management authority. The management of these factories can also be done by you, the Xiongnu.

The court has shown its sincerity. If Prime Minister Zhang is still not satisfied, then this ambassador can only go back. After all, the Duke of the Han Dynasty does not have the morale to borrow 50 billion yuan at once, and the Chanyu of my country does not have such a big face. "

Zhang Yuan did not dare to make a decision on such matters, so he could only ask Zhang Pijiang to rest first, while he found Junchen Shanyu and reported the results of the negotiations.

Junchen was very annoyed about the Han Dynasty's behavior of buying up the Xiongnu's high-quality assets at low prices. Most of the achievements of the Xiongnu's development in recent years would be taken over by the Han people.

Zhang Yuan could only whisper, "Your Majesty, we don't have many choices now. Some merchants from the Han Dynasty have already bought at the bottom. The nobles, citizens, and Confucian scholars in the country are now complaining. The Khan Yizhixie has secretly entered Shuobei City to meet with many nobles. If our country wants to survive this crisis smoothly, we must seek help from the Han Dynasty."

The military official was furious and said, "Yizhixie, do you really think that I, the Chanyu, dare not kill you?"

When Junchen exiled Yizhixie, he knew that he was ambitious and that keeping him in the Xiongnu Kingdom would be a great threat. However, he did not expect that after going to the northern border, he would actually want to come back to attack again.

Junchen studied abroad in the Han Dynasty, and he paid more attention to industry, so most of his confidants were craftsmen and Confucian scholars from the Han Dynasty, who were his base. But relatively speaking, the military nobles of the Xiongnu Kingdom did not have a very high status in Junchen's eyes. Yizhixie was more recognized by the Xiongnu military nobles, who believed that Junchen was too obviously sinicized, and Yizhixie was more like them, the Xiongnu.

Therefore, there were two factions within the Xiongnu country. One was the military aristocracy system based on land, and the other was the industrial and commercial aristocracy system based on industry. This force was also supported by military officials. During the period of rapid industrial development and prosperity, even if the land nobles were dissatisfied, they were still willing to transform into industrial and commercial aristocrats for the sake of money.

But when the economic crisis broke out, these Xiongnu nobles discovered that engaging in industry and commerce was not as good as engaging in land development, which provided them with a stable income regardless of drought or flood. This made these land nobles extremely dissatisfied with Junchen and they even considered replacing him.

Zhang Yuan immediately dissuaded him, "Chanyu, now is not the time to start a war. If the Xiongnu Kingdom handles its internal problems well, then Great Khan Yizhixie will not be able to challenge the position of Chanyu. However, if the economic crisis is not resolved, Chanyu may not be able to win even if he summons 10 troops. Once the economic crisis is resolved, Great Khan Yizhixie will definitely not dare to stay in the Xiongnu territory."

Junchen's base was hit hard by this economic crisis, and some even began to doubt his leadership. If he launched a war at this time, who knows how many nobles would betray Junchen halfway.

The military official suppressed his anger and said, "Agree to the Han Dynasty's request. My Xiongnu Kingdom will also establish a Shaofu. All factories in which the Han Dynasty has a stake will be assigned to the Shaofu and will be closely monitored."

Zhang Yuan said: "Yes!"

After the military official agreed, the two sides quickly signed the treaty. The four major banks of the Han Dynasty and private banks began to buy large amounts of stocks from the Quanzhou Stock Exchange, and the stocks there began to rise sharply. At the same time, the Han Dynasty and the Xiongnu Kingdom began to sign trade agreements one after another, such as the 10-ton oil purchase agreement, the 10-ton cotton purchase agreement, and the 2-ton concentrated copper ore purchase agreement. Inspired by these good news, the market confidence of the Xiongnu Kingdom began to recover and the economy began to improve.

After the Xiongnu Kingdom regained stability, the military officials began to prepare to deal with the traitors who betrayed them.

March 40, 3th year of the Han calendar, Changsha County, Leiyang County.

The crisis caused by the Huns seemed like a distant story and did not affect the heartland of the Han Dynasty, which also had its own crisis to deal with.

The sun was shining brightly, the sky was blue and cloudless, Changsha County had just entered spring, but the temperature was as hot as summer. For three whole months, Changsha County had not seen a drop of rain. If last year was included, Changsha County had not seen rain for nearly half a year. As a result, it should have been the farming season, but now people could not even plant rice seedlings.

Since taking office last year, Changsha County Prefect Jia Yi has been inspecting the entire Changsha County. He then found that the situation in Changsha County was far more complicated than he had imagined.

First of all, Changsha County is too large. The area of ​​one county is equivalent to the size of three or four counties in the Central Plains. Its largest span is more than a thousand miles, which is a distance that can almost penetrate the entire Central Plains.

The second is the changes in the local customs and habits of a county, which are even greater than those of a country in the Central Plains. Because of the Han Dynasty's reclamation, there are a large number of reclamation camps in the north of Changsha County. They have the support of the court in the rear, and they collectively open up wasteland and work collectively. After the roads, canals and other water conservancy facilities are repaired, the grain production capacity is bumper year after year, and life is relatively affluent.

In the central part of Changsha County, there were only a dozen or so baronies and marquisates. These countries occupied one or several counties. Under the leadership of the barons, they reclaimed land, repaired canals, and planted grain and cash crops on the fertile plains. They also built tea and orchards on the hills and mountains. In the past two years, rubber has been expensive, and these barons have been vigorously developing rubber plantations.

Because these princes were developing their own homes, they were very motivated, and they had been developing for a long time, and they also occupied good places. These dozen princely states were one of the richest areas in Changsha.

The wealth of these vassal states even affected the development of the southern part of Changsha County. The imperial court had finally arranged some manpower to settle there, but in the end, the young and strong people were attracted away by these wealthy vassal states.

The Han officials in Changsha County were helpless about this. The other party was either an earl or a marquis and could see the emperor every year. As for them, a Han official with a salary of 1,000 stones, they had to pay their respects to the emperor before they passed by. They were not as confident as them, so how could they argue?

Of course, the harsh environment in the southern part of Changsha County is also an important factor. In the north of Changsha County, even though there are hills, the land is relatively flat and there are many rivers. As long as the infrastructure is well built and the land is cultivated for a few years, this place can soon become a land of fish and rice.

However, in the south of Changsha County, there are more mountains and fewer plains that can be reclaimed on a large scale. It is almost impossible for the court to ask each household to reclaim 100 acres, and it is also difficult to build a large village. However, if only a small village with dozens or hundreds of households is built, the investment in infrastructure such as canals, roads, and bridges will be huge. According to Jia Yi's observation, the investment of the reclamation team in the south of Changsha County was five times that of the north, and the effect was not as good as that in the north.

In Wuling County and Lingling County, which are farther away from Changsha, there is a local saying: "Eight mountains, one water, and one piece of land." The cost of cultivating and building infrastructure in such places is so high that even the imperial court can hardly maintain it. The two counties have been established for more than ten years, but their development has been slow, the population has not grown much, and their finances have always relied on support from the imperial court.

The court's biggest requirement for the two places is to educate the local Baiyue people. The prefects of the two counties have always done a good job in this regard. The only trouble for them is that after they have worked hard to educate some people, they will soon be attracted away by the princes in the south. This is also the main reason why the population of the two places has been difficult to grow.

Jia Yi naturally did not want to allow this situation to continue. He believed that the more desolate the place was, the more it needed a strong organization to integrate the power of the local people, reclaim the land, build canals, roads, and docks, and construct infrastructure. Only in this way could the local landscape be changed. The power of the reclamation order alone was not enough.

He originally wanted to unite the farmers and Mohists to promote the state-run system in Changsha County. However, before he even started, a drought that occurred once every 10 years broke out in Changsha County.

In order to fight the drought, he tried every possible way, including leading the people to repair canals, build canals, buy steam pumps, dig wells, and so on.

However, Changsha County was one of the poorest areas in the Han Dynasty, with incomplete water conservancy facilities and the local people mostly from the Baiyue ethnic group, who were ignorant. As the drought became more and more severe, the governor's measures were of no use and they could only hope for the protection of the gods and demons.

So after March, the incident of mountain ghosts praying for rain in southern Changsha would have been a minor event, but in the land of Baiyue, the people are tough and faced with less and less rain, fights over water became more and more frequent. In March alone, dozens of people were injured and five died due to the fights.

In order to calm the farmers in the disaster-stricken areas, the prefect Jia Yi led 1000 county soldiers to garrison in Leiyang, the area most severely affected by the drought.

On that day, the Han official from Leiyang hurriedly reported to Jia Yi that a fight had broken out in Wugong Township and Zhongshui Township in Leiyang.

Jia Yi immediately led a group of county soldiers to rush to the site of the fight. When Jia Yi led his troops to the scene, the fighting was already fierce and a large number of villagers were injured and groaning on the ground. In the central area, some brave and fierce young men were still fighting.

Ji Wei, a minor official in Changsha County, shouted, "Stop fighting. Come and ask the county governor to solve any problems you have." But these people were so angry that they could not hear him and continued fighting.

Jia Yi said angrily: "Get rid of them."

500 fully armed soldiers rushed forward and quickly separated the two warring parties. Only then did the villagers on both sides realize that the prefect and the county soldiers had arrived here.

"The village heads, village heads, village guards, and patrol officers of Wugong Township and Zhongshui Township, all stand out," Jia Yi said angrily.

Soon, more than a dozen people came out. Compared with the villagers who were bleeding from their heads, these people were wearing leather armor. Besides, no one really wanted to kill anyone, and they were using wooden sticks without iron, so the situation was slightly better.

Jia Yi looked at his men and said angrily, "Since I came to Changsha County, I have repeatedly told them that if they have any conflicts, they can go to the county government, the prefectural governor's office, or even ask me to solve them. They must not fight privately. The local people are not familiar with the royal law, so it's fine if they do this. But as officials of the court, is this how you eat the court's salary and work for the court?"

Qiangfu from Wugong Township said angrily, "We don't want to fight the prefect, but the people from Zhongshui Township are bullying us. It's dry and rainy now, and we can only rely on Zhongshui to irrigate our fields. With the pump you gave us and the waterwheel we made, it's barely enough for irrigation.

As a result, the Zhongshui River has been dry for the past two days. We went to look for the cause and found that Zhongshui Township had built a dam upstream to block the water. This is going to starve all the people in our township to death.”

Mr. Qiang from Zhongshui Township said, "We have no other options. The land is getting drier and drier, and the water is getting less and less. If we don't find a way to save some water, it will be wasted."

"If you don't want to waste water, you will starve all of us in this village to death!" When Qiangfu from Wugong Township heard this, he became furious and wanted to continue fighting, but he was stopped by the Han soldiers.

This scene reminded Jia Yi of the questions he asked in the class of the retired emperor.

At that time, the Han Dynasty had already experienced three economic crises. Jia Yi believed that the current model of the Han Dynasty based on industry was too unstable and was not as good as the period when agriculture was the basis of the country. He then asked the retired emperor why the Han Dynasty had to use such an unstable system as its foundation?
But the emperor said: "Although there were economic crises in the industrial age, most of the time it was still prosperous. If the Han Dynasty was still an agricultural country, it would not even be qualified to encounter an economic crisis. Floods, droughts, locusts, and leukemia would lead to large-scale cannibalism as long as they occurred once. Agricultural countries are not free of crises, but have crises every year, you just don't know it."

Jia Yi looked at the scene in front of him and finally understood what the emperor said about agricultural society. It was not that there was no crisis, but that the crisis was invisible. The drought in the south of Changsha County had lasted for half a year, but not many people in the Han court knew about the drought here. Chang'an City was still prosperous. The Han Weekly either recorded the anecdotes of Chang'an City or the economic crisis of the Xiongnu Kingdom, the movements of various countries in Daqinzhou, the Tianzhu fleet established a naval base in Xiongnu Bay, and a super-large gold mine was discovered in Nanzhou. An even larger gold mine was discovered in Yanzhou, and how much the price of gold was expected to fall this year? Not many people knew about the drought in the south of Changsha County.

Jia Yi looked at the hostile Han officials and said, "The dike has been demolished. I will arrange a well-drilling team for your township later. They will dig wells in your township and get two more pumps."

The Han officials from the two villages looked better after hearing this. During this period of fighting drought, the water pump that Jia Yi brought solved a big problem for them. A water pump that kept running could solve the irrigation problem of thousands of acres of land.

The key is that this thing can be used for anything, straw, wood, as long as there is fuel, and Changsha County is least short of wood, especially at this time, the key is that the pump is not like the waterwheel, which is picky about the location, it can be used almost anywhere, even in the well. This place is in the south, and it has just been developed, so the groundwater is still extremely abundant. The pump has become the main force in fighting the drought.

Jia Yi thought for a moment and said, "Ji Wei, I appoint you as the temporary inspector of Changsha County. You will lead a garrison of county soldiers to inspect the counties south of Changsha, publicize the court's decrees, and resolve conflicts among the villagers."

Ji Wei said excitedly, "This is my order."

Jia Yi looked at the villagers who had gathered together again. This time he arrived in time, and no deaths occurred, and there were not even serious injuries, but the feud between the two villages was formed.

The people of these two villages were originally converted from the Baiyue tribe. They are barbaric and belligerent. If this conflict is not resolved, I am afraid that such fights will be inevitable in the future. If someone dies, the two villages will really become mortal enemies.

After thinking for a while, Jia Yi said, "The Han army has extremely high requirements for family background. Only good families with no criminal record can join the army. What you did today has already stepped on the boundary line of the law. I have the right not to recruit the children of your two villages to join the army."

The heads of the villages, village heads, village officials, and youjiao in Wugong and Zhongshui townships all looked terrified.

Although the Han Dynasty had been developing the south for decades, Leiyang County was too far away, thousands of miles away from Nanjun where the reclamation team first developed. Moreover, there were mountains and hills all the way to Leiyang, making development difficult and costly. Therefore, even now, the Leiyang area is one of the poorest areas in the Han Dynasty.

There are not many industries that can make a name for oneself in the local area. One way is to rely on the high school entrance examination to get into a university and get out of the mountains to live in a big city. Of course, this road is very difficult to walk, and not many people can make it. In Wugong Township, Zhongshui Township and Lian Township, only dozens of people have been admitted to universities in the past ten years. Only one or two people can make it every year. This road can be said to be an extremely difficult single-plank bridge.

Another option is to join the army. Since the Han Dynasty began to popularize infrastructure soldiers, the number of soldiers in the entire Han Dynasty has increased rapidly, especially in counties like Changsha County that need to be reclaimed. The court has allocated 3000 recruitment quotas for Changsha County each year. These 3000 quotas are a stepping stone for the people of Changsha County. As long as they serve as conscripts for three years, the court will arrange jobs for them and they will be able to eat imperial food. In this barren land, there is no better way out than this.

Wugong Township Qiangfu immediately said, "County Governor, if you are angry, you can dismiss me from my post, but you must not reduce the number of people who want to join the army. If you really can't, you can arrest me."

Mr. Qiang from Zhongshui Township also said anxiously: "It's all my fault. If I hadn't ordered the dam to be built, there wouldn't be anything like today. County Magistrate, please arrest me."

This concerns the future of the young and strong people in their village, so they have no choice but to pay attention to it.

The other villagers were also a little uneasy. They never expected that a very common armed fight would affect the future of their children and nephews.

This scene touched Ji Wei's heart. The identity of being a daughter of a good family was something he both envied and hated.

The Han Dynasty seemed to have wiped out the slave system, and all hierarchical systems based on status were restricted. Unless the nobles of the Han Dynasty had fiefdoms or fiefdoms, their political rights were the same as those of the common people of the Han Dynasty. The status of nobility was more like a kind of honor.

However, there is a group of people whose political rights are restricted in the equal land of Han Dynasty, that is, the nobles of Qin Dynasty and the nobles of the six kingdoms. The ancestors of Ji family were favored by the king of ancient Wei State. As early as the Warring States Period, his family was already a noble family. When the First Emperor unified the world, his family lay dormant for a while. When the world was in chaos at the end of Qin Dynasty, Ji family did not know who was the real dragon, so they did not participate in the war for hegemony.

But they never expected that neither the First Emperor nor the new Han Emperor had a good impression of them, the nobles of the six countries. During the war between Qi and Han, his family was purged by Han officials and the whole family was exiled to Changsha County.

It was from then on that their family went from being a noble family to being ordinary people of the Han Dynasty, and they were even worse off than ordinary people, who could take the imperial examinations and join the army.

But his grandfather and father were not from good families and were restricted from entering the military and officialdom of the Han Dynasty. His grandfather and father died in despair because of this. Thirty years after the Han Dynasty, the emperor finally thought of these forgotten people and restored their status as good family sons. Ji Wei relied on his family's background and passed the examination for the Han official the following year. After struggling for several years, he became a 400-stone minor official in Changsha County.

(End of this chapter)