Half a year passed by Liu Bei's Eastern Tour.

Starting from early February, we inspected the recovery of people's livelihood in the five prefectures of Kanto. It is now July.

The trajectory of the tour has also been completed in Yuzhou, Yanzhou, Xuzhou, Qingzhou, passed by Bohai County in Jizhou, and returned to Liu Bei's hometown Youzhou.

There are two or three stops left, and in just a few months, we will return to Luoyang.

After more than five months of walking, Liu Bei saw too many sufferings among the people and was devastated. But he also saw hope and various vitality for post-war reconstruction.

In order to rest with the people, he tried to lower the number of troops he accompanied, and only brought 50,000 cavalry to follow him. All the other large troops mobilized during the decisive battle were sent to various prefectures and counties with abundant food and supplies for food.

There seemed to be a lot of 50,000 people, but compared to the emperor's patrol, it was actually considered restrained. Especially this year, the Cao army in various places was defeated and hungry people were scattered, and the bandits formed a serious problem.

During the inspection, Liu Bei encountered and wiped out three or four bandits of bandits ranging from thousands to tens of thousands during his personal inspection. According to historical laws, after the dynasty was reunified and integrated, it took at least two or three years to clear the main bandits, which was considered very fast.

At this time, the first season of early rice in Huainan area this year has been successfully harvested and dried and put into storage. Although there are some local natural disasters and floods, the harvest is still acceptable in the general public.

The wheat cropping area in the north depends on the latitude, and it will take one or two months to complete the harvest and drying of autumn grains.

The people in the north have to endure the hungry living environment lacking staple food for a while, relying on the messy vegetables that have just matured in summer to survive.

In order to reflect His Majesty's kindness, unlike the original Liu, Yuan Shao and Cao Cao's rule, the court announced a kindness at the beginning of the year, so that the people of the Han Dynasty could breathe a sigh of relief and feel the benefits of unification:

All head taxes were exempted for one year across the Han Dynasty - the head tax here is broad, including rent and transfer. That is, all land taxes and grains collected directly based on population, household textiles (you can also pay money), corvee and transportation are exempted.

The five newly revived states in Kanto this year, plus Youzhou that was revived last year, can also receive an additional one year of exemption from land tax, two years of exemption from corvee labor and household transfer.

In other words, the people of Kanto can not pay grain for two consecutive years, and do not perform labor service or hand over silk fabrics/copper coins for three years.

The reason why food tax cannot be completely exempted for three consecutive years is that there is very little grain stored in the official warehouses in Kanto area. If it is not collected at all, there will be difficulties in the local officials' salary and military rations.

Moreover, the food is heavy and the consumption is huge. They are transported from Jingzhou, Yizhou, and Jingzhou in the rear. Even with the Nanyang Canal and the Yanglu Canal, after all, the waterway of thousands of miles is there, and at least one or two times the loss is unpaid.

Therefore, it is better to resume grain collection in Kanto from now on, from the third year. In the future, when the weather is bad, you can leave one year apart to avoid the levy. As long as you don’t have to be connected for several years, the imperial administrative system can withstand it.

As for the bad idea of ​​"reducing halved taxes for several consecutive years and reducing taxes in proportion", Li Su would not give Liu Bei any more. Even if Li Su slaps his head like this, Liu Ba's IQ will definitely advise him.

This logic may be difficult for modern people to understand, but the ancients at the end of the Han Dynasty understood it very well - tax collection requires costs, officials, tax collectors, soldiers, and layers of people are manually urging them to pay, and half of them is so much cost, and all of them are almost so much cost, which is not much higher.

Therefore, since you have collected it, you can collect it, or you can simply cut off a certain tax source throughout the year.

Don’t be half-baked, spend two tax costs, but only collect the amount once. Isn’t this a crime to be punished?

...

Of course, even if it is designed to be so subtle and sympathetic to the people.

But if the court's governance capacity and economic construction level did not keep up, with the old national conditions of the Han Dynasty more than ten years ago, such a reduction and exemption ratio would be almost equivalent to the exemption of everything, and the court would definitely find it difficult to operate and maintain it.

But for the great man in the sixth year of Zhangwu, all taxes and labor services that were calculated by the head were exempted from all taxes and labor services, which would not be completely damaged. Because all industrial and commercial taxes are inevitable, they will be collected without any delay.

All of this is thanks to the imperial court for its development in Guanzhong and south for up to twelve years before unifying the world.

As early as the fourth year of Zhangwu, the total industrial and commercial tax in the Guangfu District could reach 400 to 50 billion yuan in one year.

It can actually exceed the land tax and household adjustment calculated at par, and it is only lower than the annual labor price of corvee for the people across the country.

(Note: However, because of wars and famines, the purchasing power of the total industrial and commercial taxes is still lower than that of the national land tax. This theoretical value is calculated based on the conversion of one stone of rice to 300 yuan. In fact, the rice prices across the country are generally higher than 300 yuan per stone for many years. With the money collected from the industrial and commercial tax, we cannot buy so many meters in the years of famine and war)

The industrial and commercial tax in Zhangwu in the fifth year was steadily increased slightly compared with the fourth year of Zhangwu, and the national industrial and commercial taxes and fees were more than 5 billion yuan.

In the sixth year of Zhangwu, the gentry and powerful people in the five states of Kanto could also be levied on industrial and commercial taxes. Even if they were already poor and underdeveloped, they could find some compensation. According to preliminary statistics, it is expected that they will receive 60 to 7 billion yuan in industrial and commercial taxes this year.

From this number, we can also see how weak the industry and commerce in the newly unified Kanto region was and how severely it was destroyed before.

The six states, including Youzhou, are expected to be only a little over one billion this year. And Liu Bei's original nine states were all 5.8 billion.

The original western and southern regions combined, the industrial and commercial tax was more than five times that of the six Kanto prefectures, and considering that the population gap was more than one double. The per capita industrial and commercial tax in the western and southern regions is still two to four times that of Kanto.

But there is no need to count it so carefully in the future. We have returned to the great men.

The domination of industrial and commercial tax is also more flexible than that of agricultural tax and is convenient to dispatch. Unlike grain that requires careful calculation of transportation costs, the grain levied by each state should be used locally as much as possible, or medium- and short-distance transportation across one state at most.

Therefore, the biggest benefit of these seven billion yuan is that it can be transferred to Kanto's post-war reconstruction and disaster relief in a large proportion.

All of this is the confidence that Liu Bei had just finished fighting the War of Unification and restored people's livelihood on a large scale without tax.

With these seven billion, agriculture and corvee-service are not exploited, at least the officials and the necessary army can be supported.

The gap caused by too many troops can be filled by the army temporarily planting military camps and self-supporting to fill some of them. In the future, we can also remove the drought and preserve the essence and gradually streamline the size of the army.

Finally, considering that there was still a certain lack of relief and disaster relief during the transition period and the need for disaster relief, Prime Minister Li Su requested the emperor to allow the court to continue issuing interest-based invoice-based invoices in the next two years.

However, the issuance volume must be strictly controlled. In the sixth year of Zhangwu, the imperial court strictly issued only 10 billion yuan of indicative bonds, which was 20 to 30% lower than the previous two years.

In the seventh year of Zhangwu, it was even more necessary to control the scale of newly issued bonds below 5 billion yuan. By the eighth year of Zhangwu, it was even more necessary to stop newly issued bonds.

This specific number was not decided by Li Su, but also discussed it with ministers such as Liu Ba, Zhuge Jin.

Li Su insisted on controlling the scale, and did not want Liu Bei to lose money after he was happy about issuing bonds, and became too generous in fiscal spending, thinking that he could create currency out of thin air.

Of course, during the discussion, Liu Ba also raised a very realistic question, that is, after the scale of bond issuance is reduced, we must also beware of the pressure of "storing principal and withdrawing interest" acceptance among the people.

Because in previous years, merchants often exchanged some of the previous year's citations for newly issued this year in order to "take them out and save them" in order to "take them out" the compound interest that was extra 1% interest.

If the total issuance of new bonds is limited in the new year and shrinks compared with previous years, it is very likely that the court will not be able to raise money, and all new bond quotas will be exchanged by those who deposit principal and interest, and no new money will come in.

In this case, the court's finances would still not be able to withstand it, so after listening to Liu Ba's deduction, Li Su left a hole in the policy,

It was announced that "the total amount of bond issuance set by the imperial court for the next two years does not include the amount of deposited principal and interest exchange. The upper limit of deposited principal and interest is calculated separately, but it shall not be higher than the new bond purchased in cash, and will be stopped after the exchange is completed."

After this repair, the financial difficult stage of the post-war recovery period is expected to be smoothly transitioned.

With so many good policies that benefit the people, the lives of the people of Kanto provinces will be easier.

Specifically in the situation of each state, when the poll tax is exempted in Huainan area, as long as the food is over in the first season, the people will almost immediately struggle back from the brink of life and death.

Although Yan and Qingzhou were also tragically affected by Cao Cao's enthronement last year, they were not directly destroyed by the war. They would have to survive until August without any accidents, and basically it would have passed.

The Huaibei area in Yu and Xu was the most victimized. Fortunately, the relief was also the most concerned, and the people were fully organized to divide the land as much as possible. In Yuzhou, Lu Su presided over the work of the governor, and Zhuge Liang also worked hard in northern Xuzhou for several months, and finally dealt with all the hidden dangers.

Zhuge Liang's hometown is Langya, which is also the northernmost county in Xuzhou. He hasn't returned to his hometown for more than ten years. Zhuge Liang is still willing to contribute some effort if he has the opportunity to return home.

He even used his engineering and technical talents to contribute several agricultural tools to the people of Xuzhou according to local conditions that were conducive to the restoration of production.

It also used the wind resources along the coast of Donghai County, combined with the waterwheel system that Sili had been mature for many years in Yizhou and Guanzhong, and invented the windmill mill, so that the declining people of Xuzhou could save labor and use mechanical power to mill rice and grind noodles in an environment where the gap water energy was lacking.

Considering that the early cost of building windmills is relatively high and a large amount of wood is required, Zhuge Liang also released the "patent control" of "water wheel-driven wood cutting workshops" in his hometown, allowing local villagers to build wood cutting workshops without paying patent fees and create pencil sharpener-shaped wood lathes.

The lathes for processing logs were originally regulated before the end of the war, and the official did not allow these technologies to spread to the Kanto region. Although Cao Cao had them in the last one or two years, he also relied on stealing them and only used them for the military department to use guns, arrows and rods.

Now that the world is unified, these people's livelihood technologies can be relaxed and benefit all the people of the Han Dynasty. Only in Xuzhou area can the popularization of wood lathes.

As for the waterwheel saw machine, it was only the third year that thing was released. Huang Yueying invented when Li Su built Luoyang New City, built a shipyard in Mengjin, and built a Yellow River warship for Guan Yu's troops.

This time, Zhuge Liang was so proud of his wife that he took out his wife's invention for free and authorized it for free to give it to his hometown elders for temporary use.

Zhuge Liang also improved the sea salt production technology of the people in Donghai County, Xuzhou and other places. Based on the salt boiling, he invented a method of combining salt drying and salt boiling to save fuel and labor.

However, it is only the first year now, and Zhuge Liang only did some research and attempts when he passed by, so he didn't have time to promote it on a large scale. After all, in the future, to build coastal salt fields, a lot of manpower and material resources were needed in the early construction. What the people of Xuzhou now need is rest and recuperation, and there are not so many people to plan the salt fields.

But this method is definitely reliable. It can only be said that Zhuge Liang's research on weather and geography is indeed of a standard. Donghai County is roughly equivalent to Lianyungang and Yancheng in later generations, and is indeed the most suitable for drying sea salt in various coastal areas of China.

For such small measures, do not do things in a small way, and liberate a lot of private productivity bit by bit to allow the local area to recover smoothly.

...

The fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month,

Liu Bei and his party had just inspected Ji County, the capital of Youzhou, and the Yan State (county state) where Ji County was located. They just rebuilt this year. They observed whether the new Yan King was obedient and honest. They also learned about the border defense situation in the northern Youzhou and whether there were any abnormal movements in the nomadic peoples.

After all these problems were solved, Liu Bei finally returned to his hometown, Zhuo County, Zhuo County.

There was a depressing sensational atmosphere inside and outside Zhuo County, which made Liu Bei feel very good.

The so-called "depressed sensation" means that the elders and villagers want to come and watch, and they do love it from the bottom of their hearts, but they are also blocked by the etiquette and legal class. If you want to watch, you can only watch secretly from afar.

In order to have fun with the people, Liu Bei was preparing to participate in the local harvest festival and learn about the style of Emperor Gaozu's strong wind songs and music.

If it is a later generation, there seem to be many festivals on July 15th.

However, in the Han Dynasty, there were not so many complex folk customs that were scattered. At most, it was a good harvest in July.

If the autumn harvest is late in the northern region, there is no custom of celebrating this festival at all. Some places have even been merged with August 15th. Youzhou is also the northernmost, so under normal circumstances, Zhuo County will not celebrate the harvest on such days.

This year, it is entirely a play of temporarily adding a temporary frustration with Liu Bei.

The Taoist Zhongyuan Festival and the Buddhist Ullambana Society are still non-mainstream existences hidden in dark corners.

After all, all the development of void and metaphysics cannot be separated from the collapse of loyalty, faith, benevolence and righteousness. Only when the original moral belief collapses, religious nihilism will take advantage of the situation.

As long as the Han Dynasty does not perish, Buddhism and metaphysics will be difficult to become mainstream.

Historically, the East was completely dominated by Buddhism and Taoism, and basically began around 300 AD. It was due to the division of the Southern and Northern Dynasties and the transit of the south. People in the world were confused and did not know where the truth was.

Coincidentally, in the Western world, Christianity eroded the Roman Empire, and it was almost the same time, between about 200 and 300 years. When they succeeded, Rome had also declined to the edge of the cliff of the East-West split.

The authority and unity of imperial power collapsed, and the divine power naturally took advantage of the situation, and both the world and the world were the same.

Li Su has been traveling back to the Han Dynasty for more than ten years. He has never heard of the Zhongyuan Festival before.

Unexpectedly, I was forced to celebrate the festival now, but I returned home in glory for Liu Bei.

Well, sweep away all the strange powers and gods, and then the official celebration of the harvest will be held on July 15th, which seems good.

Liu Bei was also very timid in his hometown. This time he came back to show off, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei were with him. It was rare that Li Su came too. He pulled Li Su to show off:

"Boya, I have been leaving Zhuo County for eighteen years since I challenged the Yellow Turbans. Fortunately, three years after the Yellow Turbans, that is, the year when I challenged Zhang Chun. I abandoned my official position to save my uncle, protected my hometown, and returned to Zhuo County to live for more than two months.

At that time, I was recruiting village warriors in my hometown, and then went to Jixian to fight against the thieves. That time, Yide and Zilong were also around, so I was a short time back to Taoyuan.

Unfortunately, you were in the capital and mediated for me. You went south with Chang Yun to recruit Danyang soldiers, but you missed it. I haven't brought you to see my former residence and Yide's Zhuangzi. I also felt deeply sorry that I must stay for a few more days this time."

Liu Bei was right. Both Liu, Guan, Zhang and Zhao had been to Taoyuan, and Zhao Yun came that time in 187.
Chapter completed!