"A farm gives 600 acres? Isn't it too much?"

The official Zhao Xin frowned, as if he was in a bit of pain.

A farm is the starting price! Now the upper limit for military officials in the Western Song Dynasty to hold 16 fields. If these fields are all granted to the Yili River Valley, it would be 9,600 acres.

The Mongolians' heads look quite easy to cut. Is the fields and soil in the Yili River Valley and the Zaoye River Valley sufficient?

In addition, Zhao Xin could not distribute all the land in the Yili River Valley and the Shuye River Valley to the military households. Because he also had to leave some land for his son Zhao Ji, the King of Shuye!

By the way, the vassal kings of the Western Song Dynasty were not fiefdoms, but were enfeoffed because except Jingchu, the territory elsewhere was not valuable. What should I do if I seal it? And it was useless to seal it.

Just enfeoff the vassal kings on the Central Plains and enclose them. Because there are already Han households on the land, the prince can naturally be a mighty man and blessed when he goes there.

But if you want to enfeoff the vassal kings, what's the use of land alone? If you have a bare vassal king, who will listen to you? Don't ask someone to kill them at that time! So you have to enfeoff the households. It's not to enfeoff the private households, but to enfeoff the military households.

According to convention, every time the imperial court enfeoffed a vassal king, it would recruit a new group of "landless military households". Usually there were 10,000 households, and the recruitment targets were mainly "non-elder sons" of military households and landed gun doctors... The most unnecessary thing in the Western Song Dynasty was non-elder sons of military households and gun doctors who could not pass the imperial examination.

Such people cannot succeed or be low. The chances of becoming an official are slim and they are unwilling to farm, so they will follow the vassal kings to go to the outside world to explore.

The vassal kings also rely on them to conquer the world... The vassal kings are enfeoffed households! The territory still depends on these military households to fight!

If you enclose ten thousand military households, you can have an army of about ten thousand people. The landed gun doctor and the non-elder son of the military household are not weak. A person like No. 10,000 cannot defeat a strong enemy like Temujin, and there is no problem to bully the local snakes of the vassal states.

Therefore, except for the seven major vassal kings of the Western Song Dynasty and the King of Jingchu, they all sealed the households and then grabbed a piece of land by themselves.

Zhao Ji, the King of Shattered Leaf, is no exception. He also has 10,000 military households under him and is preparing to grab territory in the Shattered Leaf Valley area. However, this "grabbing" is snatched from the natives or Tartars, not from the court.

If the court wants to set up prefectures and counties near the target area where the vassal kings "grabbed land", it must coordinate with the vassal king's palace to avoid conflicts.

By the way, the so-called Dali King, Shule King, Gaochang King, Tubo King, Khotan King, and Qingtang King did not occupy all the territory of Dali, Shule, Gaochang, Tubo, Khotan, and Qingtang. Instead, only occupying part of the land of the above territories is about a land that can be firmly controlled by ten thousand military households.

On those territory where the Han people were not dominated, these military households led by the vassal kings were the cornerstones for the consolidation of the Western Song Dynasty's rule.

As for the rebellion of the vassal kings... the Western Song Dynasty court was not afraid at all. How could the vassal kings with only 10,000 military households beat the Western Song Dynasty court with more than 100,000 gun doctors and hundreds of thousands of military households? The Jingnan battle was simply impossible in the Western Song Dynasty today.

Zhao Xin thought for a while, then he thought about it: "The King of Broken Leaf has 10,000 households, and his own share, why do he have to enclose tens of millions of acres? The soldiers who have made contributions have another 600 acres of farms... Are there so many fertile land in the Western Regions?"

"Your Majesty," Han Tuozhou replied, "The land in the Western Regions is different from the Central Plains. Most of them are raw land. They can be reclaimed but not reclaimed, or they have been reclaimed but are now abandoned. It takes some effort to reclaim these lands.

In addition, the Western Regions have few people and wide land. Except for a few places, it is difficult to find tenants in most places. In other words, the land granted cannot be rented out at all and can only be developed by the military households themselves.

And each household has reclaimed so many, so it has to be used to grazing. Therefore, the actual 600 acres of military households cannot compare to the 200 acres in Guanlong. If it is given less, it is probably not enough to compensate for the credit.

As for the land... it should be enough."

"Since that's the case, then let's do it as it should." Zhao Xin nodded.

It should be enough... Han Tuozhou did not expect that Temujin would use the method of destroying the ecology and destroying the oasis to fight against the Western Expedition of the Song Dynasty.

But even though he knew, he had no choice but to bite the bullet and expand the rewards and the west.

Because since the Western Song Dynasty chose to "profit a hole", it must give the people below the people the opportunity to make a name for themselves, otherwise it will definitely cause trouble for the lower-minded superiors.

The Western Song Dynasty did not have the opportunity to go east and into the sea, and the space to south and north was not large. From Bagan to south, it was a place of miasma. From Tubo to south, it was a road that traveled south. When going north, it was a place of bitter and cold in the northern desert, which was also not suitable for land granting.

Therefore, the expansion of the west has become a more feasible way out!

Even without Temujin's rise, it was only a matter of time before the Western Song Dynasty expanded westward.

However, the Western Song Dynasty, which expanded westward, would encounter the problem that the expansion cost was higher than the profit... Although this cost was not entirely borne by the court, a considerable part was shared by the "gun doctor" and military households.

However, the losses of expansion will still be reflected in the financial situation of the two pillars of the Western Song Dynasty, military households and gun doctors... Once these two classes fall into economic difficulties, the ruling foundation of the entire Western Song Dynasty will be shaken.

However, in the 1218th year of the Western Calendar, the Western Song Dynasty court did not know that the military households and gun doctors under them would go bankrupt due to the war in the West. Because they did not expect that the Mongols would implement a firm scorched earth tactic in the Western Regions!

The consequence of the Western Song military households and gun doctors falling into trouble was a new Central Plains war... After the policy of advancing west was set, advancing eastward to seize the rich Eastern Song territory became the only choice!

At the same time, the Eastern Song Dynasty, the "brotherland" of the Western Song Dynasty, ushered in an era of great prosperity with joy.

The prosperous era was facilitated by three factors. The first one was of course the peace dividend after the Second Central Plains War. Due to the western expansion of the Western Song Dynasty and the priority policy of the Great Zhou Dynasty, the United States of the Eastern Song Dynasty was in an era when the surrounding environment was most harmonious since its establishment.

The second factor is that the two things that are involved in the North American development stimulated by the Temujin War are actually not very important. However, under the joint promotion of the Great Zhou Republic and its vassal United States, a craze for the development of the East Coast of North America led by the military industry has emerged. This boom not only provided great opportunities for the industry and commerce of the Great Zhou Dynasty, but also allowed the industry and commerce of the Eastern Song Dynasty to share development opportunities. Because the investment of the Eastern Song Dynasty industry and commerce on the East Coast of North America can also enjoy the subsidy policy of the United States of North America.

The third prosperity factor is the inflation caused by the continuous inflow of gold, silver and brass in the New World.

The moderate rise in prices is not unpleasant in most cases, especially the developed industry and commerce in the core local areas of the Eastern Song Dynasty, which significantly benefited from this level of inflation. Not only did wages increase significantly, but the people in rural areas also became increasingly rich due to the continued increase in the area of ​​economic crop planting.

Starting about 20 or 30 years ago, cotton from America began to be trial planted in the Jiangnan region and achieved good harvests. The Jiangnan textile industry also gained a new development opportunity. Not only silk, but also cotton cloth.

In addition to cotton, rapeseed and beets were also introduced to China in this early era of great navigation. They were planted in large quantities on the land of the Eastern Song Dynasty. The production of edible oil and sugar also increased greatly. Among them, "JAC Sugar" has become five important international trade commodities in the Jiangnan region after silk, cotton cloth, tea and iron tools.

With the comprehensive prosperity of the economy of Jiangnan and Jianghuai, the dietary structure of the people of the Eastern Song Dynasty also underwent major changes in the past few decades, and the consumption of meat and oil has become increasingly common.

Due to the large-scale planting of cotton, rapeseed, sweet tea, mulberry trees and tea trees, and the continuous development of pastures for raising cattle and sheep, the arable land used for growing grain in Jiangnan and Jianghuai is constantly declining.

At the same time, a large amount of food was used to feed livestock and poultry in order to provide enough meat for the wealthy people of the Eastern Song Dynasty.

Therefore, the Eastern Song Dynasty, which occupied the hometown of fish and rice in the Jianghuai River and Jiangnan, changed from the grain export area to the grain import area since the 1216th year of Hezhong. Every year, a large amount of rice must be imported from Jiaozhi, Annan and Chameng to meet the demand.

As for Fujian, a traditional grain importer, it was extremely dependent on the supply of Jiaozhi rice as early as 60 years ago.

In addition, wood imported from Siam, spices imported from the South and the West, medicinal materials imported from the Great Zhou (including Goryeo and Japan), fur, wool, brass, soybeans, coal, gold, silver, peanuts, peppers, tobacco and other items imported from the Americas and the New Song Dynasty have all become indispensable parts of the prosperous Eastern Song Dynasty economic life.

In other words, the local area of ​​the Eastern Song Dynasty had changed from a self-sufficient pastoral land to a part of a huge international colonial trading system.

Of course, the Eastern Song Dynasty was not a bitter colony, but a land of colonists who enjoyed the huge wealth provided by the colony.

This should have been a good thing, but the United States system of the Eastern Song Dynasty was a little unsuitable for this world empire.

Although there was a world empire in later generations that used the system of "United States as a nation", the central power of that United States had been greatly expanded after a civil war with heavy casualties.

However, the United States of the Eastern Song Dynasty had not experienced such civil wars, so it still maintained the concept of building a country with the United States. It even strengthened the "Hezhong system". In more than 90 years after the founding of the country, the number of Hezhong states increased from the first 18 to 50.

Every Hezhan State has great autonomy, can have militias, enact some laws, and the most important thing is to have an independent fiscal system and can exert a huge impact on the country's tariffs!

In other words, the Eastern Song Dynasty was actually an alliance, and every Hezhan State could place its own interests above the national interests of the United States.

Therefore, it is difficult for the United States of the Eastern Song Dynasty to fully develop its national strength. This situation is very similar to the United States of North America, a vassal state of the Great Zhou Republic. However, there are no strong enemies around the United States of North America, and it is even far away from its mother country, Great Zhou. Therefore, without a strong central government, it will not hinder its development and growth.

But this was not the case in the Eastern Song Dynasty. This country was always under great oppression of external troubles.

In this case, it is really a bit dangerous to still adopt a unified political system.

The biggest threat to the Eastern Song Dynasty United Kingdom was not the Western Song Empire, because the merchants of the Eastern Song Dynasty, Hezhong, were completely incompatible with the Western Song Dynasty's arrangement.

Therefore, when the Eastern Song Dynasty faced several attacks from the Western Song Dynasty, all Hezhong Prefectures were united. The Hezhong Government of the Eastern Song Dynasty naturally had soldiers and money, and had a powerful Yangtze River Navy, so it would not lose.

But to some extent, the Great Zhou Republic could coexist with Hezhongzhou of the Eastern Song Dynasty!

Because the Republic of the United States is a very close system, if there is anything different, it is that the source of power of the United States is diversified. Every state of Hezhan has power very close to the central government!

The source of power of the Great Zhou Republic is the unified Senate, which is the supreme authority, and has the final say in everything that happens in the Great Zhou Republic, including all its vassal states and the autonomous territory.

The so-called autonomy in the Great Zhou Dynasty actually means that the Senate of the Great Zhou Republic decentralizes power. The Senate can regain its governance at any time or issue instructions to the local government in the form of a bill, and can even abolish or change the boundaries between any state, county, town and autonomous territory.

Of course, in most cases, the Senate of the Great Zhou Republic will fully respect local governance.

In other words, for Hezhongzhou, the United States of the Eastern Song Dynasty, joining the Great Zhou Dynasty is always an acceptable option!

To enable the Eastern Song Dynasty to have the cohesion to resist the Great Zhou Republic, the loose Hezhong system must be changed. But in this way, what is the difference between Hezhong Prefectures in the Eastern Song Dynasty and the Autonomous Prefectures in the Great Zhou Dynasty?

Since there is no difference, why don’t you join the Great Zhou and fight against the Great Zhou?

Not to mention that the military power of the Great Zhou was stronger than that of the Eastern Song Dynasty, the American market controlled by the Great Zhou regime was also irresistible to most of the Hezhong Prefectures of the Eastern Song Dynasty.

With the advent of the era of great development of the East Coast of America and the arrival of Temujin's army at the Marmara Sea, the states of the United States of the Eastern Song Dynasty became increasingly dependent on the American market.

From this era, the theory that long-term division will lead to unity began to become popular among the states of the Union.

After all, Greater China has always yearned for unification, and the two Central Plains wars with heavy casualties also made the people of the Eastern Song Dynasty, who were living in wealth, fear the war, and thus hoped for the arrival of a long-term unified prosperous era.

The court of the United States of the Eastern Song Dynasty was a little helpless!

Because the power of the court is really limited, it is difficult to interfere with the internal affairs of the Hezhong states. Moreover, the royal family of the Eastern Song Dynasty has always been weak and ready to run away to Australia at any time. They have no confidence in the future world struggle, and can they accuse the people of the Hezhong states of being too soft?
Chapter completed!