A thousand-year-old family that began with the Battle of Makino

Chapter 277 Domestic Unification, Concealment
March
Liu Xiu led the Grand Sima Wu Han to lead 60,000 Jingzhou soldiers and 5,000 horses. They met with Cen Peng at Jingmen and went west along the Yangtze River into Shu. Lai She and Gai Yan led their armies from southwest Longxi to attack Hechi and enter Shu.

The South Route Army successively broke through the Shu Army's defense line and was unstoppable. It drove straight from the Three Gorges to Jiangguan. Along the way, counties and counties watched the wind and surrendered, and the army was approaching Jiangzhou.

June
The army from the Northern Route came to She and defeated the Shu generals Wang Yuan and Huan'an. They captured Xiabian and Hechi and advanced into the middle of Shu.

Gongsun Shu saw that the Han army's offensive was too fierce, especially the Northern Route Army, which was about to attack Chengdu in the near future, so he sent an assassin to successfully assassinate the leader of the Han Army's North Route Army, Lai She.

When Liu Xiu heard that Lai She had been assassinated, he was heartbroken and sent General Liu Shang to continue his march south.

On the other side, Jiangzhou City had a lot of grain and was difficult to break. General Cen Peng then left troops to besiege him and led his main force to Dianjiang, and then broke through Pingqu.

Gongsun Shu urgently ordered generals Yancen, Lu Qian, Wang Yuan and Gongsun Hui to lead their troops to resist Guanghan and Zizhong, and sent Hou Dan to lead 20,000 people to resist Huangshi.

However, Cen Peng did not rely on his strength to attack. Instead, he left General Zang Gong in Pingqu to resist Yan Cen, the main force of the Shu army. He then led his army back to Jiangzhou, went up Jiangxi, attacked Huangshi, and then traveled more than 2,000 miles day and night. Detour around the middle reaches of the Minjiang River, occupy Wuyang, and attack Guangdu.

Guangdu is only a few dozen miles away from Chengdu and can be reached in less than a day on horseback.

Gongsun Shu panicked again, and then used the old method to send assassins to kill the Han army general Cen Peng, and the Han army retreated.

When Liu Xiu received the news of Cen Peng's death, he was furious and ordered Grand Sima Wu Han to lead 30,000 troops to the front line to take over Cen Peng's command.

The twelfth year of Jianwu

New Year
Wu Han led the Han army to defeat the Shu army in Yuweijin, surrounded Wuyang, and annihilated more than 5,000 Shu reinforcements. Then he went west to defeat Guangdu and approached Chengdu.

Wu Han was eager to win and led 20,000 infantry and cavalry to attack Chengdu, but was defeated. Wu Han immediately changed his tactics and secretly retreated to the south bank of Jinjiang River at night to join forces with his deputy Liu Shang. They fought against the enemy with all their strength and turned defeat into victory.

After that, Wu Han followed Liu Xiu's tactics of attacking again when the enemy was tired, and fought with the Shu army between Chengdu and Guangdu, annihilating the main force of Gongsun Shu, and approaching the city of Chengdu.

November

Han general Zang Gong conquered Fan, and Pi joined forces with Wu and Han to encircle Chengdu.

Gongsun Shu recruited five thousand warriors and gave them to Yancen to command, with the intention of using them to fight the Han army.

Yancen then defeated Wu Han at Shiqiao, south of Chengdu.

But little did they know that this was Wu Han's strategy. Wu Han concealed his elite troops and showed weakness to lure the enemy. Seeing Wu Han's defeat, Gongsun Shu thought that he could turn defeat into victory. Overjoyed, he led the army in Chengdu to attack, and the Shu army was defeated.

Although Gongsun Shu was rescued by his subordinates and returned to the city, he was still seriously injured and died. Finally, Yan Cen, the city guard, saw that the situation was over and led the Chengdu defenders to surrender.

After pacifying Shu, Liu Xiu made great contributions to the cause and offered sacrifices to Gaozu Temple in Luoyang.

Most of the generals who had been following him were given the title of marquis. The great Situ Bailin was named Marquis of Wencheng, and he was granted the title of a householder. Su Jin, the main counselor, was granted the title of Marquis of Yinhuai, and was granted the title of Household of Ten Thousand Households.

There are countless other meritorious officials who were named princes.

After Chengdu surrendered, it meant that there was no longer any force that threatened Liu Xiu in the world. It took Liu Xiu twelve years after he ascended the throne to finally bring peace to the world, making the world that had been divided and war-torn since the end of Xinmang return to normalcy again. Be unified.

It took nearly twenty years from the great chaos at the end of the New Year to the reunification of the world. During these twenty years, the people suffered heavy casualties. Countless people died in battle, disease and starvation. The world's population was almost "two out of ten", and only one person was left. There are more than 10 million, and millions of them are still in Hebei.

Therefore, a large number of people from Hebei went south to enrich the population of Henan.

In order to restore and develop the war-torn Central Plains as quickly as possible, Liu Xiuze "knows that the world is exhausted, and rests his mind on happiness. Since the Ping of Long and Shu, he has not been cautious and has not talked about the military again."

Except when necessary, Liu Xiu almost never used his sword. Except for the necessary guards in various places and borders, the rest of the redundant soldiers were sent home to the fields.

Later, edicts were issued many times to free slaves and prohibit the cruelty of slaves, which greatly improved the problem of a large number of landless peasants becoming slaves of powerful families since the end of the Western Han Dynasty.

It also solved the problem of a large amount of land being deserted and insufficient population after the war.

Not only that, after no longer using weapons rashly, the military expenditure of the Han Dynasty was reduced. For this reason, Liu Xiu began to do light corvee and low taxes. In order to reduce the number of poor people who sold themselves into slaves, he often distributed food relief, reduced rent and corvee, developed agricultural production, and built water conservancy projects. .

They also carried out multiple inspections of official corruption and dismissed a large number of corrupt officials. They also eliminated useless or redundant official positions created during Wang Mang's period and eliminated officials who could only be repeated.

Merging counties with small populations into one and reducing the number of officials meant a reduction in salary expenditures, which greatly reduced the burden on the people.

After pacifying Shu, Liu Xiu made great contributions to his achievements. Most of the generals who had been following him were given the title of marquis. The great Situ Bailin was granted the title of Marquis of Wencheng, and he was granted the title of Marquis of Wencheng, with a population of ten thousand households. Su Jin, the main counselor, was granted the title of Marquis of Yinhuai, and was granted the title of Household of Ten Thousand Households.

There are countless other meritorious officials who were named princes.

The thirteenth year of Jianwu

Liu Xiu held a banquet in the North Palace of Luoyang, and all the distinguished officials and nobles in Luoyang were invited to attend. At the banquet, Liu Xiu bluntly stated that in order to change the chaotic government of Wang Mang, he would impose strict demands on officials and nobles. Most of you are heroes who followed him to conquer the world and live in Luoyang. If you make mistakes, you will be punished. It's hard for him to do.

For the sake of the face of both parties and the good of his brothers, he decided to reward them generously. As long as the generals who followed him to Luoyang were almost all granted the title of Marquis, the lowest was Guannei Marquis.

But asked them to return to their respective fiefdoms. Because if heroes hold official positions in the government, they will inevitably make mistakes, and they will lose their titles and lands, which he does not want to see.

So after the banquet, most of the heroes left Luoyang, and Liu Xiu also recruited a large number of civil servants to fill their vacancies in the court.

The fourteenth year of Jianwu

Rengui, a native of Yuexi, claimed to be the governor and sent an envoy to bring hundreds of names and petitions for surrender.

September
The Shache Kingdom and the Shanshan Kingdom sent envoys to Luoyang to pay tribute.

December

Slaves from Zhaoling Yi and Liang Prefectures who have registered their own complaints in the past eight years will be restored to civilian status, and the sellers do not need to repay their worth.

The fifteenth year of Jianwu

What Liu Xiu held in his hand was the latest national registered population statistics from the Situ Mansion. According to incomplete statistics, there are more than one million households in the country and a population of more than 6 million.

"Okay, that's great. I've been deceived by everyone." Liu Xiu gritted his teeth.

As the founding king of the country, Liu Xiu had fought his way from the bottom to a high position, so he knew very well how ridiculous the statistics in front of him were.

If you look at this report, let’s not mention the total number of six million. Although Hebei has experienced the least war, its population of three million can be said to be passable, because Hebei has not been a blessed land since ancient times.

But the total number of people in other areas is only more than three million. Especially in Shu, which was just pacified not long ago, there are only more than 500,000. How can 500,000 hold off the imperial army for a year?
There are also Qingzhou, Xuzhou, and Yuzhou, even if they have suffered from successive wars, they will not only have more than a million people. You must know that Qingzhou and Yuzhou have always been the richest places in the world.

Obviously, the country's population is more than this, and it is definitely hidden by local powerful forces and local officials. I originally thought that if I hand it over honestly, it would look fair on the surface. After all, I have unified the country, and it is not appropriate to go to war and turn a blind eye. It passed in the blink of an eye, but the appearance of eating was too ugly.

The rich and powerful families in Hedong have the Bai family's clues, but they are a little better, only half of the population is hidden, so Hedong accounts for 600,000 of the one million people in Hebei.

Just because I have never been in Hebei, right, when Bai Lin was still in power, there were one hundred thousand soldiers serving in Hebei alone, not to mention the peasant army that had previously fought against Liu Xiu, each of which was not counted in millions.

Let’s take a look at the reasons given by local officials. Those who died in battle, starved to death, died of illness, and some were violently ill. Since Liu Xiu moved the capital to Luoyang, almost a thousand people died in a county every year, and pigs were not killed so fast.

It’s really like the sky is high and the emperor is far away.

"Summon Bai Li, the Taizhong doctor for me." After Liu Xiu calmed down, he carefully thought about how to deal with it, and then asked someone to summon him.

Bai Li was the second son of Bai Lin. In the thirteenth year of Jianwu's reign, Bai Lin resigned when Liu Xiu gave a banquet to invite the heroes to release their military power. From that time on, the population registered in the Situ Mansion continued to decrease.

"I'm Taizhong, I'd like to see your majesty, your majesty." A stern middle-aged man in his early thirties, wearing a bright red official uniform, paid homage to Liu Xiu.

"Bai Qing, your father once told me that if we want to be strong and prosperous in this world, the first priority is stability, so I have made the attack on Wei Xiao and Gongsun Shu a top priority, and I have even gone so far as to overdraw the people's resources and go on an expedition every year.

After stability comes the development of the country, and if you want to make the country prosperous, the first thing you need is people. As long as there are people, this great country will be as stable as Mount Tai.

But now local powerful people collude with local officials to hide people in an attempt to evade taxes. If the court does not solve the problem, it will reduce the country's revenue. How will it defend against foreign enemies?

As a descendant of the Bai family, I know very well the influence of the Bai family on Hebei. It is for this reason that I can safely hand over Hebei to you.

Now that there is a problem in Hebei, the first thing I think of is you, because I know that your purpose is the same as mine, and we both want the country to be prosperous and the people to be stable.

So I want you to go to Jizhou to supervise the local government's work of verifying the number of acres of cultivated land and the age status of the household registration. At the same time, I want you to supervise whether the two thousand chief officials are violating the law or being biased to cause unfairness.

Are you up to it? "

Bai Li pondered for a while and replied: "Your Majesty, I can give you a brief explanation. The attitude of my family towards the local lawless powerful people is definitely consistent with your Majesty. This can be seen from the policies implemented by the Bai Kingdom before your Majesty took over the six counties of the Bai Kingdom. figure it out.

Even now, because of the implementation of Xin Mang's New Deal, there are no powerful people in the Bai Kingdom. But this can be achieved in a corner of the Bai Kingdom and cannot be extended to the whole country. Xinmang has already set the best example for us.

Even East County, where my grandfather tried his best to implement the New Deal and succeeded, is now again under the control of the new local powerful.

Therefore, I am very honored to be able to contribute to His Majesty, which is to contribute to the family. I will definitely live up to His Majesty's trust and try my best to restrain the local powerful and powerful families. "

Liu Xiu was very happy after hearing this. He nodded repeatedly and said: "I and Bai Guo are both prosperous and destructive. I believe in you very much."

(End of this chapter)