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

Chapter 696, I am afraid that my brother will suffer, but I am also afraid that my brother will drive a Land Rover
The next year, Duke Ji got several kings of small countries in the Western Regions to perform the Western-style Huxuan dance in front of Xu Fan. Lu Chen of Liaodong got dozens of shamans to hold a grand blessing ceremony to bless the Han Dynasty with good weather and good harvests.

Seeing that more and more dance teams were brought by the princes from all over the country, Xu Fan felt that it would be a waste for only himself and the high-level officials of the Han Dynasty to enjoy the performance. So he moved the production site to the square outside Zhangtai Palace. In the pre-Qin period, this was the production site for inspecting the army. It could easily accommodate tens of thousands of people and was suitable for large-scale evening parties.

Therefore, for the people of Chang'an, the meeting of princes was the grandest festival. Every night, they could see dance performances from various countries, civilizations, and continents. Every year, the square outside Zhangtai Palace was filled with people who came to watch the performances.

In the square outside Zhangtai Palace, Emperor Xu Aimin sat at the head, and on both sides of him, on the left were the Three Dukes and Nine Ministers headed by Chen Lei, and on the right were the Han princes headed by Han Jing, the Duke of Mobei.

At this meeting of princes of the Han Dynasty, most of the dukes sent their sons or envoys to attend. Only Han Jing, the Duke of Mobei, came to Chang'an City because he wanted to build the Mobei Canal, so he was the person with the highest status among the princes of the Han Dynasty. Then came the sages, outstanding representatives from all walks of life, and representatives from various countries in the Great Qin Continent. At the outermost edge were the common people of the Han Dynasty who came to watch the excitement.

"Bang bang bang!" As fireworks exploded into the sky, the entire Chang'an city was illuminated by bright fireworks, and this year's party officially began.

The first dance to appear was the Goddess Dance of India, which had local Indian characteristics and was extremely revealing. In later times, such a dance might be considered borderline, but for the tolerant and open-minded Han people, they would not come to watch anything other than this kind of dance.

Gongsun Hong saw a young man who seemed to want to see but was a little afraid to do so. Seeing that he was dressed as a farmer, he asked, "Which county are you from?"

The young man bowed and said, "I am Zhu Maichen from Kuaiji. May I ask this senior brother?"

"Xue County, Gongsun Hong."

In the Han Dynasty, Mohism, Legalism, Agriculture, Confucianism and Taoism were the five most mainstream schools of thought. Among them, Mohism had become the number one school of thought in the Han Dynasty with the support of two generations of emperors. Now is the heyday of Mohism. Two of the three prime ministers of the Han Dynasty were Mohist giants. Now the mainstream of the Han Dynasty is the joint rule of Mohism, Legalism and Agriculture, while Confucianism and Taoism are developing overseas respectively.

As the school grew larger and had more students, in order to identify each other, the five major schools had different clothing styles due to their living habits, so each of them had its own school clothing, so they could identify each other at a glance.

Gongsun Hong then asked in surprise, "Kuaiji County is as prosperous as Chang'an City? How come you don't seem to have seen this?"

Zhu Maichen said, "Those who are open-minded are all city dwellers. In our villages, people still live according to traditional customs. Although women can show their faces in public, no lady from a respectable family would dress like this."

Economic development will bring about social prosperity and openness, but it will also make the social atmosphere in some areas become conservative. This is the case with Kuaiji County. The city has people from all continents, civilizations, and races, and its level of openness is not inferior to that of Chang'an City. However, in many places, many people are not used to this kind of openness. After being stimulated, they become more conservative.

To put it nicely, this group of upstarts in Dahan are called the entrepreneurial generation, or to put it bluntly, they are peasants. These people experienced the boom of Dahan, became powerful, and began to imitate the life of the upper class in their own way. The different styles of imitation resulted in different appearances.

Gongsun Hong smiled and said, "My Han Dynasty is vast and tolerant, and can accommodate all kinds of customs."

Then Gongsun Hong asked, "Junior brother, are you a representative of the wise, or an outstanding representative of the farmers?"

Zhu Maichen proudly said: "I am an outstanding representative of farmers. I am the president of a senior agricultural cooperative in Kuaiji County. Our agricultural cooperative has a pig farm with a scale of over 50 yuan, and has contracted 3 acres of fish ponds and thousands of acres of mulberry forests. Relying on diversified operations, our agricultural cooperative has an annual output value of more than 6000 million yuan and a profit of more than 20 million yuan. Our villagers have an annual income of more than yuan. There is no agricultural cooperative richer than us in the entire Kuaiji County."

After that, the two men communicated and found out that Zhu Maichen also came from a poor family, but he was also smart and fond of reading since childhood. He was then noticed by Zhang De, an elder of the farming family at that time, and was accepted as a disciple. He learned various agricultural techniques from the farmers, and led his village to prosperity at a young age, becoming one of the few advanced agricultural societies in the entire Han Dynasty.

The similar background made Gongsun Hong feel a little favorable towards Zhu Maichen. Seeing him was like seeing himself. Without the system of outstanding representatives, he wanted to stand out, but he didn't know how long he would have to wait. He sighed and said, "We have caught up with a good era. The court is willing to make use of sons of common people like us. Junior brother, you must serve the court well."

Zhu Maichen nodded and said, "Of course it should be so. The court has exempted the land tax for thousands of years. We can never repay the emperor's kindness."

The Han Dynasty has been reducing taxes for decades, and now it has directly exempted land tax. For farmers, the Han Dynasty is the best dynasty.

Zhu Maichen thought for a moment and asked, "Brother, how will the court arrange for us?"

Of course Zhu Maichen wanted to go into politics. Although his advanced agricultural cooperative could manage thousands of people, becoming a Han official would give him a broader horizon.

Gongsun Hong smiled and said, "First, go to the Political Affairs College to study for a year to understand the court's procedures for handling government affairs. After that, you will generally be assigned positions based on your expertise. For example, Mohists generally go to county offices as clerks, or go to factories as managers or other management levels. Legalists are legal officers or directly enter the Imperial Censor's Office. In the past two years, the court has added the Provincial Governor's Office, which is also a place to go. Confucians are academic officers, or principals of primary and secondary schools. We farmers are agricultural officers. We have the status of outstanding representatives. When we go to the local level, we are at least officials with a salary of 1,000 stones, and we have priority in promotion."

Gongsun Hong was a beneficiary of this system. Originally, at his age, it would be difficult for him to be promoted even if he became a Han official. However, because he was one of the first outstanding representatives and was favored by the emperor, he passed three barriers in three years and became a 2000-shi Han official from an ordinary citizen. However, the job of promoting sports and culture in the countryside can no longer satisfy Gongsun Hong. If he wants to make further progress in the Han Dynasty, he must have the qualifications of a prefect. He is now trying to seek a prefect.

While these outstanding representatives were communicating with each other, Xu Aimin was also communicating with Han Jing, Duke of Mobei.

Han Jing complained, "Your Majesty, trains replaced horse-drawn rail cars, and now cars and trams have appeared. And according to the court's plan, cars and trams will be vigorously promoted. Every year, we have to sell 3 million horses to the Han Dynasty, which is almost a 20 billion market. If this source of income is cut off, how can we, the princes of Mobei, survive?"

The desert has only a few specialties: cattle, sheep, horses and wool. Apart from that, there is really nothing else. Decades ago, the Han Dynasty began to build railways and trains, and millions of horses running on the Han Dynasty tracks became unemployed.

Fortunately, the people of the Han Dynasty became increasingly wealthy, and the horse-drawn carriage industry gradually flourished. Chang'an was even known as the city on horseback. The Han Dynasty purchased three to four million horses from the desert every year. Now that the Han Dynasty wants to promote cars and trams, the number of horses that will lose their jobs this time is likely to be several times more than those pulling tracks, and the pillar industry of the desert has been hit hard.

The contemporary Wuyang Marquis Fanshiren also complained: "If we can't sell horses to the Han Dynasty, how can we survive? The court should just take back our fiefdom. I will stay in Chang'an City and serve you like a brother. I only hope that you can take me in."

Don't look at the fact that the imperial court abolished three vassal states during the day, and the vassal states were shocked. But none of the vassal states in Mobei were afraid. It's a joke. If the imperial court hadn't strongly persuaded them to stay, who would be willing to stay in Mobei, where the wind was biting and the desert was everywhere? The only places in the whole Han Dynasty that were worse than them were Nanzhou and Yanzhou.

Take the Wuyang State as an example. It was the largest vassal state except for the Mobei State. Its area was roughly equivalent to three counties of the Han Dynasty and half the size of Hebei Province. However, Wuyang State was not rich at all. Half of its land was desert Gobi, and it could not even raise many cattle and sheep.

It makes me cry when I talk about it. Wuyang State was founded more than 30 years ago, and it still has to rely on the imperial court to support 3000 million yuan every year to barely balance its income and expenditure. But the imperial court's money is not free. As the Marquis of Wuyang, he has to spend half of his time every year leading his people to plant grass in Mobei, and he also has to limit the number of cattle, sheep and other livestock in his country.

At first he didn't know why the court had to do such a thankless task. Later, during a water conservancy project, Li De told him that it was to prevent the desert sand from blowing into the Guanzhong area of ​​Hebei.

When the people of Fan City heard this, they almost shed tears of grievance. They suffered from the wind and snow and the sand in Mobei, but the lords in Guanzhong paid them to grow grass in order to eat less sand. These princes lived worse than the people in Guanzhong.

Although they are all princes, some of them eat a lot of food and fat, some of them live a luxurious life, and some of them are so poor that they are almost becoming barbarians.

At this time, the person he envied the most was his brother Fan Kang. Originally, the Marquis of Wuyang was his brother, but in order to stay in Chang'an City, his brother gave up the title to him. At that time, he felt that his brother was kind and righteous, but now it seemed that this was leaving him in an ice cave.

There is an old saying in later generations that goes, "I am afraid of my brothers suffering, and I am also afraid of my brothers driving a Land Rover."

Fan Shiren was like this. After he got the title of Marquis of Wuyang, he was very surprised at first, but then he was worried that his brother would not be able to make a name for himself in the Han Dynasty, especially when his brother was a military officer in Daqinzhou. In Fan Shiren's opinion, his brother was exiled thousands of miles away, and he was also worried that his brother would be forgotten by the emperor. But he did not expect that in a war with the Huns, his brother was awarded the title of Marquis based on his own strength, and now he has become the General Zhenbei of the Han Dynasty, an important official of the Han Dynasty.

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This made the people of Fan City extremely jealous. If the title had not been exchanged, this should have been their life. Being a general in the Han Dynasty was ten times better than being a prince in the desert.

Xu Aimin naturally couldn't really let these princes in Mobei give up. Using these princes to suppress the desert was the lowest cost option for the Han Dynasty.

Even if the Han Dynasty had to support these princes, the annual expenditure was only a few billion coins. In the pre-Qin period, the First Emperor spent 30 troops to guard Henan. If the Han Dynasty spent troops to guard the border, the cost would probably be more than billion.

Xu Aimin wanted to extend his favor, but the area he wanted to extend his favor to was the wealthy Jiangnan region, not Mobei.

Moreover, Mobei is also the most important place for the recruitment of troops for the Han Dynasty. The people of Mobei have good endurance, high quality, and are not arrogant. Thirty percent of the Han Dynasty's army comes from Mobei.

So he said: "I have asked the Han officials about the Mobei Canal project, and none of them agreed, saying that the project is difficult, the cost is too high, and the benefits are too low. So the court will help the various princes in Mobei to build a 10-mile railway so that Beihai can be connected to Yuyang County by railway. In the next years, more than miles of railway will be built, so that the specialty products of Mobei can also enter the Han Dynasty at the lowest transportation cost.

But cars and trams are the core industries of the court's second scientific and technological revolution. They are equivalent to the status of steam engines, and the court will never give them up. However, the court can increase the reward for Mobei by 30%. You should also seize this time to reduce the number of horses raised and increase the number of cattle and sheep. "

The Fanshi people continued, "Your Majesty, can you increase the number of places in the academy and soldiers? Mobei is full of loyal and brave men, and everyone is looking forward to serving the Han Dynasty and the emperor. Please don't disappoint these loyal and brave men."

After discussing with Prime Minister Chen Lei and General Chai Wu, Xu Aimin said, "We can increase the number of students and soldiers in Mobei by 30%."

Han Jing was delighted when he heard this and said, "On behalf of the Mobei lords, I thank God for his grace."

They did not have much hope for the plan to be passed, but the crying child gets the milk. They needed the court to pay attention to them. Compared with the princes in other areas of the Han Dynasty, Mobei not only had a cold climate and barren land, but it could not even be self-sufficient. Princes like Liaodong, the Western Regions, Jiangnan, and Nanzhong could be self-sufficient even without a court, and at least their rule would not collapse.

But Mobei cannot do that. From the most basic pots and pans to various tools, tractors and other farm implements, all of these can only be purchased in the Han mainland. Even Mobei's wool, cattle, sheep and horses need to be sold to the Han in order to make a profit. Now Mobei is richer than during the Xiongnu period because the industrial chain has been opened up. In the past, it was difficult for their cattle, sheep and horses to enter the Central Plains, and even if they did, they would be brutally exploited by unscrupulous businessmen. Now all of them are gone. Mobei's herdsmen can even drive their own cattle and sheep to the Central Plains to sell.

But the world is changing. The herders in Mobei are more than ten times richer than they were decades ago, and the Han people in the Central Plains are dozens of times richer than they were decades ago. This comparison makes the herders in Mobei feel unbalanced. But with these preferential policies, these princes also seem to be accountable to the people of China.

October 55, 10st year of the Han calendar, Chang'an City, Liu Mansion.

After his father came back, Liu Qi said, "Father, the Prime Minister of Tianzhu, Dong Zhongshu, invited me to Tianzhu to serve as the Minister of the Imperial Household."

Before Liu Heng could say anything, Liu Piao was shocked and said, "Second brother, are you crazy? Going to a poor country like Tianzhu to serve as a Han official, what future can you have!"

Chen Wu thought for a moment and said, "If I become the Shaofuling, it would be much better than staying in the Han Dynasty as a minor official. After all, Tianzhu is a big country, and the Shaofuling is equivalent to a 2000-shi Han official in the Han Dynasty."

(End of this chapter)