warring states careerist

Chapter 647 The Path of Qi Country ([-])

The views on wealth of the Qi State School of Economics and the Mohist School have both similarities and difficulties in matching.

Regarding the idea of ​​a "rich country", the class interests represented by the two sides are also fundamentally different.

Theoretical morality is only theoretical morality after all, and the road of Qi State needs to be in line with reality.

An important reality that Qi State has to face, or a situation completely different from Sishang Mohism, is the deep-rooted nobles in Qi State.

This is an existence that cannot be ignored. In the era of change, the change will inevitably damage the interests of the nobles.

The methods used by the Mohists were simple and crude. They completely wiped out the nobles in Sishang, either physically, or forced them to become industrial and commercial investors. They used land reform to disintegrate the basis for the existence of the nobles.

But Qi State could not use such a simple and crude method, not because of Tian Herenyi, but because his basic ruling base was the aristocrats, unlike the Mohist where the basic base of ruling was peasants, businessmen and commerce.

How powerful is the power of the nobility in Qi?You don’t need to look at other people, just look at Tian’s own family, you can know that they are big nobles who conspired to seize power in a coup. At that time, Tian couldn’t help guests, which led to a large number of heirs. Under the feudal system, one family controlled [-]% of Qi’s fiefs. , This is the reason why Tian Shi Daiqi was able to succeed.

After enriching the country, it is necessary to strengthen the military. These two very realistic dreams also have to consider the reality of Qi.

Before this coup, Tian He had already begun to think about the way to make the country rich and powerful, but the advisers and staff around him had discussed it many times, and absorbed many people from the Guanzi School entrusted by Qi State with the name of Guan Zhong.

To use the theories of the Guanzi School to enrich the country and strengthen the army, one has to consider the attitude of the nobility.

How to make the nobles obey the orders of Marquis Qi?

How can you collect money from nobles?
How can the interests of the nobles and the monarch be tied together?
This is the difficulty of the Qi State, and it is also the fundamental reason why it is impossible for the Qi State to borrow the experience of the Mohists in Sishang - there are no nobles in Sishang.

Looking at the world, the richest place is now Sishang.

The experience of Sishang cannot be learned, so the most prosperous places other than Sishang are those places around Sishang in Song Dynasty.

It is rich there.

There is a different system from Sishang.

That seems to be learnable.

How did the aristocrats get rich in the place near Sishang in Song Dynasty?

Tian He has heard about this. In simple words, the little nobles there no longer rely on the rented labor land of the fief to live, but run their own fief.

For example, if the original twenty-well fiefdom relied on labor rent, only three of the twenty wells could be used as their own income, and the farmers on the other seventeen wells were relied on to cultivate the feudal obligatory farming—a system that dared to govern private affairs after public affairs. Get Mitsui's income.

But now, the little nobles in the lands close to Sishang in the Song Dynasty adopted another method: they took back their fiefs and drove the redundant farmers out of the fiefs, causing a large number of farmers to go to Sishang to enter iron smelting, Handicraft, glass and other industries.

However, there are still twenty wells of land, but the owners of the land buy cattle and horses, adopt ridge farming, buy plowshares, and hire farmers to grow food.

The vigorous development of industry and commerce in Sishang requires a large amount of grain, wine, indigo and many other agricultural products. The small nobles of the Song Dynasty who could only earn three wells originally managed twenty wells of land. According to the market price purchased by Sishang, or It is to grow potatoes to open winemaking workshops, or to grow wheat and corn to be transported along the river to Sishang, or to grow indigo cotton.

A large number of farmers lost their land, but it did not cause turmoil, because the development of Sishang's industry and commerce urgently needed a large number of people, and along with it, the development of Sishang's industry and commerce also required a large amount of grain as commodities from the Song Dynasty, and the handicraft products of Sishang not only It is only sold in Song Dynasty, so it creates a kind of stability.

That is: every year hundreds of thousands of farmers are driven out of their land, and Sishang receives hundreds of Song people every year to enter the workshop or go south to cultivate wasteland, and then purchase a large amount of grain and raw materials from the Song State. The products made are sold all over the world.

It seems that the richness of Song State can be learned by Qi State, but after discussing with people from Guanzi School, Tian He thinks that it cannot be learned.

First, the issue of the military system.

After the coup d'etat in Shangqiu 20 years ago and the co-government of the people of the Song Dynasty, Shangqiu had a semi-standby army that could crush the nobles.A large part of the area occupied by the Mohists in Sishang belonged to the State of Song. According to the covenant of the year, if there was turmoil in the State of Song, the Mohist army would support the co-government by the people of the country just as they did when they fought against Chu.

The reality of Song State plus the rise of Mohism and the decline of Wei, Han, and Chu made no princes provoke Song State before they could wipe out Mohism in one fell swoop.

The existence of small nobles in the Song Kingdom is different from the original military system of the feudal system. It is no longer necessary to recruit private soldiers of the nobles when fighting. The semi-standby army and the power of the Mohists are enough to maintain the stability of the Song Kingdom.

Except for the aristocrats who strictly abide by the etiquette of a gentleman and think that it is "inhumane" to expel farmers from their land, the remaining minor aristocrats are deeply affected by the development of Sishang's industry and commerce, and gradually turn their fiefdoms into means of production for providing commodities.

Qi is different.

Qi State does not have a sufficient standing army, and adopts the system of combining farmers and soldiers. The soldiers in the Linzi area are the main force that the monarch can recruit.

During the war, the peasants and soldiers in the Linzi area were the main force, and the nobles had to fulfill their feudal obligations and provide the monarch with chariots, apprentices, and their own private soldiers in line with their fiefdoms.

For example, the Pingyin Army that was annihilated in the First Battle of Nanjishui was not a standing army, but the peasants and soldiers near Pingyin and the private soldiers of various nobles recruited during the war.

For example, a sergeant, as a sergeant, needs to take out a chariot, three baggage carts, and a sufficient number of apprentices in his own fief during wartime.

In the orthodox weekly system, there are 500 brigades, and a doctor's position in the army is actually the brigade commander. When they go out, they will send out a brigade division.

With the increase of the population, the sergeants in Qi State are basically the lower officials of the Zhou system, but because the Qi State system has undergone a reform, the brigade of Qi State is a large brigade of 2000 people, so the lower officials of Qi State are still The commander of the brigade, but the number of people that a sergeant can command is equal to the number of senior officers before the Spring and Autumn Period.

If you want to change the military system, it will turn the world upside down. Qi does not have such conditions, and Tian He believes that he does not have the ability to completely centralize power. It may be counterproductive: especially when Tian He is in power, he will face The situation is that he wants to contend with the aristocratic forces left behind by his elder brother. If he dares to move the aristocrats, the aristocrats of Qi who have not completed the centralization and have just had civil strife will get rid of him.

The Song State could do that because of the existence of the Mohist School and the existence of the covenant 20 years ago, so that the Song State had a standing army at the time of the foreign war, which was the volunteers of the Mohist School; The aristocrats of the Song Dynasty were divided internally, but none of them was enough to resist the Mohist volunteers. After the situation of the three surnames' co-government was interrupted by the Mohist family, whoever violated the covenant would have the disaster of annihilation.

The State of Qi could not do this, because Tian He did not have a standing army in his hands, and because of the internal strife, the treasury was empty, and he could not hire many "fighters" as full-time mercenaries, and the war still relied on the power of the nobility.

With money, you can maintain a standing army that obeys the monarch, and then oppress the nobles to gradually take power.

Instead of offending the nobles first, and then thinking that you can get money in this way, you can form a standing army at that time: the order is reversed, and the result is self-evident.

Since the military system cannot be changed first, the peasants must be bound to the land.

Regardless of the issue of turmoil, if the Qi State adopts the methods of the Song State, then the peasants will migrate freely. The free migration of the peasants means that the nobles cannot effectively control the fiefdoms, and it means that the nobles cannot pull out enough feudal power during the war. conscripts.

Song and Sishang, because they didn’t need the nobles to be entrusted to rule, nor did they need the feudal conscripts on the nobles’ fiefs, and they could have a standing army of about 4 people, so they could be nobles.

Qi State can't do it, because the number of scholars and officials in Qi State can't be compared with the whole Sishang, and there may not even be a single city in Peiyi. soldiers to fight.

Martial warriors originated from the well-developed industry and commerce in Qi State, but martial fighters are elite mercenaries but not many in number. Relying on mercenaries to fight wars is a huge problem, and it is difficult to maintain a sufficient number.

Especially since the Spring and Autumn Period has come to an end, now that the princes of the world are fighting each other, with an army of [-] to [-] at every turn, we can't just rely on the elite fighters.

In history, the reform of the Qin State could achieve a powerful army that did not require the feudal obligations of the nobles. It originated from the fact that Qin Mo entered Qin after the three points of Mohism, and trained a large number of grassroots officials with officials as teachers in an organized way. Juzi Mo's son killed someone, King Qin needed to seek Juzi Mo's opinion and propose a pardon, because what he was facing was not a single person, but the leader of an organization that monopolized Qin's education and grassroots officials.Therefore, the Qin law is strict and the grand master will cut his nose, but Qin Jun still has to intervene about the murder of Qin Mo's son.

Sishang can now pull up a standing army of tens of thousands of people without the need for nobles, because Sishang's well-developed industry and commerce spends half of its annual income on education, and has trained a large number of grassroots cadres who have jumped out of the Zhou official school system. After building a grassroots governance system that can control down to the township level, why do nobles need it?Not only do you not want nobles, but you also don’t want people from other schools of Mohism, including Confucian scholars, because Mohism is now its own system.

Now Qi State cannot do this in terms of military system, nor is it capable of doing so.

The military system is one, and stability is the second.

In the chaotic times of the Warring States Period, all theories that could be valued by the monarch and be favored by the monarch were all aimed at "rich the country" and "strengthened the army".

But the premise of a rich country and a strong army is stability. In this era, "all the people change their careers" can be regarded as unstable, which is also unacceptable to the monarch.

(End of this chapter)