warring states careerist

Chapter 836 Party A and Party B

Xinzheng City.

Several carriages pulled valuables such as silk, copper coins, and gold, and were escorted by a team of soldiers to the place in the city where the Mohists planned to build a new city defense day and night.

The gunfire outside the city continued, but it could last for a while. The Wei and Han coalition forces had just begun to fill the ditches, and the thick base of the city wall could at least last six or seven days under the crude copper cannons of the Wei and Han coalition forces.

Xinzheng City is very large, so big that after the construction of Chengdu City in South Korea in the original history, the circumference of the entire city wall was 45 li, which was seriously overstepped.

It's just that when South Korea was building a large-scale construction project to expand Xinzheng, no one cared about Zhou Tianzi. At that time, he could naturally go beyond the rules-45 li.

At this time, Xinzheng was smaller than the later capital city of South Korea, but it still had a circumference of more than [-] miles. There were vegetable gardens and other places in the city, and the agricultural population still accounted for the majority.

Of course there is a lot of open space, but if you want to build a new city defense, you must choose a location that cannot be too close to the original city wall, and you must have a certain plan.

Those carriages containing Zheng Jun's belongings were to pay the Zheng people whose houses were about to be demolished.

The Mohists who were active in Xinzheng Mingmian had been effectively organized. Except for the people who were defending the city on the front line, in the direction of the Wei and Han artillery attacks, the people were first organized into Shiwu.

Fortunately, there is a basis for the establishment of Shiwu.

After the Zichan reform, the country was established. After Zheng Yougong died at the hands of the Koreans, Zheng and Han fought for decades. Although it is impossible for the militarization of grassroots organizations to spread throughout Zheng, it can still be done in the capital of Zheng. .

After Qin Mo entered the Qin Dynasty, the laws of the Qin State guarding the city were so strict that the three armies were "one army for strong men, one army for strong women, and one army for the old and weak". If you really want to keep Xinzheng for a period of time, you have to use this method.

The people of Xinzheng don't trust the monarch and the Si family, but they trust the Mohist family enough, so the Mohist family can easily act as a bridge between the princes and nobles and the common people.

After several truckloads of belongings arrived, they called the organized people together and talked about the importance of demolishing houses and building new city defenses.

The people also know that if the princes and nobles are fighting, they will demolish the houses if they really want to demolish them. There is no need to pay the price of the master certificate.

Xu Ruo also knew that this kind of thing needs to be done from the princes and nobles before the people can be convinced. Therefore, the starting point of demolishing houses in this key area to build a new city defense is from a nobleman's house.

The Mo family didn't say too much politeness, and directly demolished a courtyard of a noble with the Huang Talisman, which has the power to mobilize all forces in the city except the private soldiers of the nobles.

The family members of the aristocrats wanted to resist and refuse, but they were forcibly demolished by the organized and endorsed Zheng Jun and the Mo family who were behind the Si family.

The country of Zheng is economically developed, and it was also the first country to produce private litigators and lawyers. It also happened that private law replaced criminal and official methods. It is not difficult to find someone who can evaluate.

After roughly estimating the cost of the house, it was demolished directly. The wood, soil and stone were either used as materials for repairing the city wall, or directly used as building materials.

This is similar to the routine of Shang Yang's standing trees in later generations. When the people lack the most basic trust in the princes and nobles and the government, they can only use those people who the people think are the most unattainable.

What Shang Yang moved was the hand of the Qin government who didn't care what to say; what Xu Ruo and others moved was the hand of the nobles of Zheng State.

After gaining basic trust, the Mohists began to incite and agitate what they are best at.

This most basic trust is not between the people and the Mohist, because the two parties already have enough trust before, and the Mohist often do some unofficial, non-profit actions, which is the most cost-effective and labor-saving. But it is the best way to describe the way to attract people's hearts - if there is an earth-shaking change like Sishang, too much financial, manpower and material resources need to be invested. The world can support one Sishang, but it cannot support other places like Sishang.

However, even if the tongue is eloquent, even if the public has enough trust in the Mohist school, the effect of publicity is not good.

It's not even bad, it's extremely bad, with very few responders.

Xu Ruo and a few Mohists held a simple meeting behind, and an Mohist who was eloquent and able to publicize shook his head and said: "It's too difficult, timid, cooperating with the nobles to defend the city, it's impossible to publicize, let alone Let the people do their best.”

"Our policy in Sishang cannot be said. This is the rule of our activities outside, so how can we publicize it? I really can't find any rhetoric that can make the people fight to the death."

Xu Ruo also listened to the propaganda just now, and the public really didn't care at all.

He was clear that it wasn't that the people of Zheng State couldn't do it, but that the Mohists and the princes and aristocrats of Zheng had cooperated in the united front, so there were some things that couldn't be said.

The most fundamental things cannot be said, so why mobilize the people?

The most fundamental thing cannot be said. From the public’s point of view, fighting among the nobles is fighting for power and profit. It has nothing to do with them if they win. It might be better if they lose...

Zheng Guo's situation is very special.

For example, those who demanded a death-fight in Zheng State were from the Si clan, and their family's power basically controlled most of Xinzheng.

The war with South Korea has continued over the years, and the people have suffered a lot.

It's not about the suffering of dying on the battlefield, death is death, and when you close your eyes, that's all.

The real suffering is how to live without dying.

For example, farmers in the city, after the Zichan reform, many of them had their own private land. After the introduction of ironware, new crops and new technologies, if everything went well, their lives would be good.

For example, in the past, only bone tools, wood tools, and stone tools were used for farming, and there was no ridge farming or new crops. The people of Zheng State could at least survive.

Being able to live on the original material basis, once the production technology has a cross-domain development, it is obviously possible to live a good life.

For example, in the past, a family was awarded [-] mu of land, and after the reform of Zichan, it became a private field. This will also fill the stomach in the age of copper and stone.Once the new iron crops come, the same hundred mu can produce several times the original grain, and life will definitely be better.

However... most of the people in Zheng State did not enjoy the benefits brought by the advancement of production technology like Si Shang did.

Years of fighting, the family's land lacks young and strong labor to plant...

This matter can be ignored by the Qin State after the reform in later generations, because the Qin State centralized power reform, emphasized agriculture and suppressed business, and granted land to prohibit the sale of land. The whole Qin State is similar, and no big merchants and nobles took the opportunity to annex the land. After centralization, the state's violent machinery contends.

Zheng Guo couldn't ignore it.

The monarch was unable to centralize power, and the private ownership and private land system appeared early in Zheng Guo, the earliest and most prosperous place in the Central Plains.

The peasants are fighting in the front, and the family pays heavy taxes to try to maintain the family. If there is a slight famine, the nobles and merchants will flock to take away the last things of these peasants.

This is also the reason why the ideological trend of the peasant family can easily have many believers in the Central Plains, and why the utopian theory of insisting on emphasizing agriculture and suppressing business, no price difference between market and household, and public ownership of land will be respected by the people at the bottom.

For the lower class, compared with the state of the Central Plains where the new era is about to emerge and the old era has collapsed, they would rather accept Qin's emphasis on agriculture and business, containment of nobles, and land as the least important thing for them to settle down. Not to be taken away policy.

This is the dilemma faced by the owner farmers in Xinzheng.

The price of ironware is not low, and the price of cattle and horses is not low, and all kinds of taxes have to be paid, so it is difficult to accumulate wealth.

On the one hand, the price of grain has been reduced year by year, money has begun to circulate on a large scale, and farmers have even less money.

In times of famine, borrowing is required, and high interest is required to be paid for borrowing. Part of the income of the supporters of Meng Changjun in later generations comes from the interest of usury.

If you can't afford it, you sell your private land, or become a serf of the nobles, or become a farmer.

Wei Han didn't come to liberate the people. The war between Wei Han and Zheng was a dog-eat-dog battle between nobles, but the reality is that once the Wei-Han coalition invaded, most of the Si clan would definitely be killed.

When a person dies, there is no need to repay the usury. The rest of the Liumu nobles brought by Wei Hanhe will at best inherit the original land and expand the fiefdom, and they can't even inherit the usury.

In Sishang, this problem is actually very easy to solve: violent means, elimination of nobles, reshuffle and distribution of wealth, so that the people can enjoy the dividends brought about by the progress of productivity, and suck the blood of Kyushu countries so that the people of Sishang will not suffer too much.

Even if it is not in Sishang, if the Mohists are really in power, this problem is easy to solve: the nobles retain at most a part of the land stipulated in the Zhou ritual system as private land, cancel personal attachment, and distribute the excess land to the people according to the population. It is recognized that the principal is doubled, and once the interest exceeds one time, the interest is deemed to have been repaid, and the excess is regarded as the principal.

But this is the problem: the means to solve it are very simple, and these simple means cannot be implemented.

If it is implemented, then there is no need to join forces with the nobles to defend the city, and there must be an uprising first.

This is also the most troublesome place for Xu Ruo and other Mohists. Their death is imminent, and the nobles of Zheng Guo have no self-knowledge.

In the eyes of some nobles, being able to promise that the defenders of the city will demolish the houses will be compensated according to the price. This is already the ultimate.

The propaganda is timid and reserved. It would be a ghost if it could arouse the people.

In the Zheng Guo uprising, it was asking for death, and the above did not allow it. If it was launched privately, it would be criticized as consuming power and not good for the long-term.

That being the case, it is necessary to maintain a "compromise" with the nobles, but once such a matter is compromised, there will be no result.

The result is what it is now. After shouting for a long time, it's not that there is no lack of trust, but even if it can't touch what the people want most, the people are still unwilling to contribute at all.

(End of this chapter)