Qin Emperor Ziying

Chapter 544
Not long after sending Xu Cheng away, Ziying led a large army back to Xianyang.

As for Xianyang, the capital of the Great Qin Dynasty, Ziying didn't stay for much time when he thought about it carefully. Perhaps the longest time he stayed was the period of time he stayed in the Xianyang Prison.

The first thing Ziying did after returning to Xianyang was to amnesty the world and release all the prisoners who were originally in prisons in various places in Daqin except those who had committed unforgivable crimes.

The second thing is to order to reduce the tax rate, reducing nearly half of the tax rate during the period of Emperor II to one ten taxes.All taxes on grass and manuscripts levied by the second emperor for feeding rare birds and animals were exempted, and the forests were temporarily opened only to allow the common people to eat in the forests.

Although the tax rate of Daqin is still a bit high compared with the [-]-[-] tax in the period of Emperor Wenwen of the Han Dynasty, even the [-]-year tax in the early Western Han Dynasty, but in Ziying’s opinion, one step cannot be too big, and now Daqin is not completely stable. Come down, step by step, at least there will be another battle with the grassland next year, and the food and grass that needs to be consumed is still not a small amount.

In the future, with the recovery of social productivity and the pacification of wars, the tax rate of Daqin will definitely be reduced again.

As for the corvee system that made the people miserable in the Great Qin Dynasty, it has gradually relaxed. At least the army supported by the Great Qin Dynasty now has a much smaller scale than the hundreds of thousands of millions in the period of the first emperor and the second emperor. The total number of troops in the world is less than 50, which also includes the army stationed in the four counties of South Vietnam. The burden of military service on the people has been greatly reduced.

Before that, the Mausoleum of the First Emperor and the Efang Palace, which had consumed a huge amount of corvee, also completely stopped under Ziying's order.

So this winter, although the outside is as cold and cold as in previous years, the people of Daqin rarely saw the hope of living.

Prince Ying of Qin, who was known as the "virtuous king" at that time, became the emperor. Taxes and corvee were reduced, and he would not be thrown into prison accidentally. Everyone can eat, and the only harvest in the family last year can be kept as seeds for next year.

The hundreds of thousands of troops in South Vietnam have been hoarding fields for eight or nine years, and they have already formed a scale. Now they can not only solve their own rations, but also transport them to Guanzhong and the Central Plains on a large scale.

Ziying, who has food in his pocket, is more confident in carrying out his own plans.

At the beginning of the second year of the third emperor, with a cry in the palace, the eldest son of the Great Qin Emperor came into the world.

Ziying looked at the sweet son sleeping next to Xia Ke. Although he has been a man for two generations, he is a father for the first time. He even seems to have passed away. From now on, his goal is not only to make Daqin stronger, but also to have another goal. , that is to make their children live better.

Maybe that's what every parent is trying to do.

The arrival of the eldest son of the emperor gave the Daqin court a reassurance. The emperor had a son, which meant that the Daqin would have successors. , Will Daqin fall into the melee again?

Taking the arrival of the emperor's eldest son as a signal, the noble concubine Xue Ji and the empress Sima Jingjing gave birth to a son and a daughter one after another in just ten days.

If adding Ziying's eldest daughter who is still in the grassland, Ziying now has four descendants, two boys and two girls.

After struggling for a few days, Ziying decided to name his children, namely the eldest son Yingming, the second son Ying'an, the eldest daughter Yingqing, and the second daughter Yinghua, and announced it to the world.

Accompanied by the news that the Great Qin Emperor's son-in-law was pregnant, came an imperial decree that made the whole world boil.

The main content mainly includes two points. One is to release all government slaves and give them the status of civilians, and stipulate that human trafficking is strictly prohibited in Daqin from now on.

Although some slaves were released and given surnames during the period of the First Emperor, the laws at that time were limited by historical conditions and were not complete. Those who enjoyed this policy were more slaves who participated in the Qin army, more official slaves and slaves. The slaves belonging to the big families were not freed.

During the period of the first emperor, even if the first emperor issued such an imperial edict, he would probably be strongly resisted by powerful people, but Ziying at this time had stronger conditions than at that time.

After so many years of fighting in Daqin, those tyrants basically either coerced the people to participate in the great cause of rebellion, and then were eaten by big fish and small fish, or they were ransacked by rebel heroes and left behind. Every family is ruined.

Today's Daqin can't find many heroic families at all, and the only ones are two or three big cats and kittens who dare not jump around under Ziying's prestige.

The second point is the land equalization order. The specific content is that Daqin nationalized all unowned wasteland and distributed it free of charge to civilians with little land and slaves who had just been freed.

After the fields have been cultivated for a certain number of years, they become owned by individuals and are allowed to be traded. However, in order to prevent large-scale mergers of land and the birth of aristocratic families, Ziying ordered strict regulations on the maximum number of acres of land for each family.

Officials at all levels have also been assigned positions of varying sizes according to their ranks and titles.

Now that the Great Qin is in chaos, there are not many other things but a lot of unowned wasteland, and the benefits of this policy are also very obvious, not only to prevent the emergence of aristocratic families.

More importantly, as soon as this order came out, the third emperor immediately won the strong support of all the middle and lower classes, including the newly released slaves, and the Great Qin, which had just experienced war, immediately stabilized.

There is land to live on, and the tax rate is still so low. As long as you sell two more labors, your family will be able to have enough food and clothing. What more pursuits are there for the people?
Moreover, all the people who received the land granted by the government immediately became people under the government's management, and paid taxes to the government after harvesting, which also greatly increased the population size and tax sources directly controlled by the government.

Ziying, who is familiar with history, knows that the land equalization system that began in the Northern Wei Dynasty and lasted until the Sui and Tang Dynasties was not only due to the large number of unowned wasteland at that time, but also a major reason was to fight against the aristocratic families and the aristocratic families to compete for the people.

Although the current Daqin family has not yet formed, Ziying doesn't mind taking precautions in advance.

Of course, the implementation of the land equalization system in various places is also somewhat different according to the actual situation. In densely populated areas with fertile land, there may be less allocation, and in sparsely populated areas, there may be more allocation. If you voluntarily go to the four counties of Nanyue, each person can directly share. To two hundred acres of wasteland.

Although with the increase in population and the reduction of land in the hands of the government, the land equalization system may not be able to be implemented for a long time, but it is the best way to restore productivity at this time when everything is waiting to be done.

For the common people, what is more exciting than farming their own land!

(End of this chapter)