Chapter 308 Three Years of Rest and Nineteen Years of Jianan
Chapter 308 Three years of recuperation, nineteen years of Jian'an
Since Liu Bei's decision to conquer Xichuan in the 14th year of Jian'an, and now at the end of the 15th year of Jian'an, the situation in the south has stabilized.
Zhuge Liang, Pang Tong, Xu Shu, Fazheng, Zhang Song, and Jia Xu were in full swing on local governance and implemented the reform measures and plans previously made.
Liu Bei enfeoffed all his ministers and his treasury was almost empty.
Zhuge Liang began to build economic measures. He did not use the left general Xi Cao to send Liu Ba's "hundred-valued money" suggestion. Instead, he followed Shen Chen's suggestion of borrowing money.
Of course I'm not really asking someone to borrow it.
But tax.
Isn’t this the beginning of measuring the land?
There are countless wealthy people in Jingzhou and Yizhou. After the new policy, the government used its political status and low price to buy back nearly half of the land.
For example, it turns out that there was a powerful man in a certain county, his clan had a population of several hundred, and there were thousands of people including field slaves, disciples, weavers, and children. He owned 100,000 acres of land, and his family fortune was huge, and he had countless money.
The government will summon this powerful man and give him a choice.
The first is to appoint officials as officials, liberate farm slaves, and conduct an inventory of their fields and population. At least half of the slaves and properties will be taken away by the government, but they will be bought and sold at a lower price, and they will also be given a certain political status. , and exempt from some taxes.
The second is to continue to retain cultivated land and population, and the government must conduct a comprehensive inventory. Then comprehensively collect taxes according to field tax and Ding tax, and pay three years of back taxes. If you dare to resist or adopt a negative attitude, your family will be confiscated and your family will be exterminated.
You must know that all of these wealthy families are extremely rich.
According to the "Book of the Later Han·Zhongchang Tongzhuan": "The rich man's house has hundreds of buildings, the fields are full of fields, and there are thousands of slaves and maids, and they have thousands of tricks. They bribe treasures and goods, and the big house cannot accommodate them; horses, cattle, sheep, and hogs , the valley cannot bear it.”
It is enough to show the gap between the landlords and the poor class.
For example, when Mi Zhu was in Xuzhou, he was not from a wealthy family, and his ancestors had never had high officials. He could manage tens of thousands of slaves just by doing business, let alone those nobles whose ancestors had had high officials.
Therefore, Zhuge Liang and others carried out internal affairs restructuring, which was obviously a move against the powerful landlords, just like fattening pigs and starting to slaughter them during the New Year.
In this way, the finances of Yizhou and Jingzhou became full again in an instant.
The population of the two places was greatly liberated, which indirectly promoted the prosperity of handicraft industry and economy, and commerce and trade became more and more active.
Although such a policy led to strong opposition from powerful families in Jing and Yi, the policy of serving as officials in other places made it beyond the reach of even officials from powerful families, so they had no choice but to write to Liu Bei to dissuade him.
The memorials flew to Jiangzhou like snowflakes, and Liu Bei simply left everything to Zhuge Liang and went to Jiangling to get married.
By the beginning of the 16th year of Jian'an, some civil strife broke out, but they were all put down.
Under the powerful tactics of Zhuge Liang and Fa Zheng, these powerful landlords could not make any trouble.
By February, Shen Chen got married to Liu Bei's daughter Liu Ning.
Liu Ning was seven years younger than Shen Chen. In the 16th year of Jian'an (AD 211), Shen Chen was 24 years old and Liu Ning was 17 years old.
When Liu Bei entrusted his daughter to Shen Chen, she had just grown hair.
Liu Ning has been living in Xiangyang for the past year and has often socialized with Shen Chen. They also went out to the city to hunt together and sat and talked about scriptures together.
It wasn't until September last year that Liu Bei returned to Jiangzhou from Jingzhou and went to Bashu with his family.
Although Liu Ning was not a great talent, he was well-educated and morally good, and was not an unruly and willful person. Therefore, Shen's mother finally sent someone to Jiangzhou General Zuo's residence to propose marriage.
Liu Bei was naturally very happy and readily agreed.
After getting married in February, Shen Chen handed over the military affairs of Nanyang to Gan Ning Wenpin and Zhang Xiu, and stayed with his wife at home every day.
While the Liu Bei Group was developing with peace of mind, the Cao Cao Group was also recuperating.
The year before last, Cao Cao pacified Wuhuan, and last year he personally conquered the high officials. Now the entire north, except for Gongsun Kang in Liaodong, is in Cao Cao's hands, and the territory has reached what it was before the Battle of Chibi.
Historically, in the 16th year of Jian'an, after his defeat in the Battle of Chibi, Cao Cao spent three years recuperating and stabilizing the internal situation before he began to use troops against Guanzhong.
However, at this time, his progress was far behind. Although there was no fiasco at Chibi, losing the Nanyang Basin meant that there was no bridgehead to control the southern forces, so he had to station troops in Runan, Yingchuan, to guard against Liu Bei.
Now that it has finally stabilized, several disastrous defeats against the southern troops have meant that although Cao Cao has more than 300,000 troops, he is unable to invade the south on a large scale and can only choose to stabilize his rear.
During this period, Cao Cao issued the "Order to Seek Talents", which was based on meritocracy and recruited heroes from the north. Many talents joined him and expanded the prime minister's shogunate.
Liu Bei was not to be outdone, and issued the "Examination Order". As long as he passed the examination, he could serve as an official. At the same time, he vigorously supported the children of poor families and common people, especially many students of Shen Chen, who served as officials in various places in Jingzhou and Yizhou, serving as an urgent need for reform. pioneer.
For a time, the north and the south were prosperous, and everyone was carrying out internal rectification.
In sharp contrast to Cao Cao and Liu Bei is Jiangdong.
Although the Sun family was still able to hold on to the southeast of the Yangtze River, their vitality was severely damaged after being flooded and burned by fire.
At this time in history, we had 170,000 to 80,000 troops. We even led 100,000 troops to confront Liu Bei and Guan Yu's 80,000 troops in Yiyang, Public Security and other places due to the Jingzhou issue.
However, with all the strength from Jiangdong at this time, only 70,000 to 80,000 men and horses could be recovered in two years. If it were not for the continuous attacks on Shanyue and Jiaozhou to make up for the shortfall, and the gradual recruitment and training of troops, I am afraid that the current number of troops and horses would be even less, far inferior to that of Liu Bei and Liu Bei. Cao Cao.
But it's not entirely without good news.
Sun Quan's ship technology has been innovated. After the fire burned the Hongkou, Sun Quan obtained some of Shen Chen's ships. Through technological restoration, he owned paddle wheels and eight-slot watertight compartments.
The former of these two technologies can increase the sailing speed of the ship, and the latter can prevent the ship from sinking if the cabin is damaged.
Moreover, Shen Chen built fields around lakes in Jiangxia, Changsha and other places to create the Jianghan Plain. He used Champa rice and Han Dynasty native rice to form a double-cropping rice. Coupled with transplanting technology and retting technology, grain production was greatly increased. Sun Quan also sent people to secretly learn Gone.
Since the 16th year of Jian'an, the Yangzhou Taihu Basin has also begun to comprehensively promote double-cropping rice and transplanting and retting methods, which will play a vital role in the food problem in Jiangdong.
But what Sun Quan didn't know was that he was secretly happy, thinking that this would bring him great help, but he didn't know that Shen Chen had no intention of hiding these technologies in the south. It would be better if they could be promoted.
The reason is simple.
Although these technologies can bring innovation to food, the size of Jiangdong and Jingzhou and Yizhou is here.
Historically, the population of Yangzhou reached 4.43 million. Now including Jiaozhou, the total population has exceeded 5 million.
Most of them were aristocratic families and disobedient ethnic minorities, and the actual population under Sun Quan's control was only more than one million.
Moreover, Sun Quan suffered several disastrous defeats and made him compromise with the aristocratic family. He was unable to obtain the family's population and land. The income from farming by the aristocratic families would not be given to your Sun family at all, nor would they pay taxes, nor would they help Sun Quan. How many benefits.
Jingzhou and Yizhou are undergoing reforms, and more and more land and people have been liberated, and Liu Bei will actually control more and more people.
Let’s use a crude metaphor.
Counting Sun Quan's two million people to help him farm and pay taxes, thanks to technological innovation, the income was enough for him to support an army of 200,000.
Then Liu Bei had 6, 7, or even 8 million people helping him farm and pay taxes. The income would be enough for Liu Bei to support an army of 800,000, which was more than four times that of Sun Quan.
Although the actual situation is definitely not like this, it is probably the meaning.
The size gap between Sun Quan and Liu Bei is too big, which means that no matter how much Sun Quan develops, his overall strength cannot compare with Liu Bei's.
Because you are developing, others are also developing. You gain 10 points of experience through development, and others gain 100 points. The gap is getting wider and wider invisibly. This is reality.
So Shen Chen didn't care at all about Sun Quan promoting the technology he invented, and even wanted him to help promote it.
When Jiangdong is eliminated in the future, these technologies will have already taken root in Jiangdong, and there will be no need for the government to waste time and effort in spreading new technologies.
The counterpart to Cao Cao, Liu Bei and Sun Quan is Han Sui and Ma Chao.
No matter how embarrassed Sun Quan is, at least he has a piece of land in name, and can slowly recuperate through internal affairs and gradually grow stronger.
The situation of Han Sui and Ma Chao was much worse.
Because Xiliang is barren and has a population but not rich. Guanzhong has fertile land but almost no population.
It is impossible for the two of them to move the Xiliang people to Guanzhong.
This leaves them with little room for development and can only settle for the status quo.
Fortunately, soil erosion in Gansu was not that serious during the Han Dynasty.
Mr. Shi Nianhai, a famous historical geographer of later generations, once studied it. He believed that the mountains of Gansu during the Han Dynasty were lush and green, and were covered with forests everywhere.
The forest areas on the mountains often extend to the plains and plains below the mountains. These dense forests are interspersed with farmland and grasslands, showing green everywhere, covering the vast Loess Plateau.
Moreover, the local water resources are abundant. Chaonaqiu in Anding County of the Han Dynasty is forty miles across. There is no flow, no increase or decrease in winter and summer, and no vegetation grows.
With relatively good resources, the Han people under the rule of Han Sui and Ma Chao cultivated wheat and millet, while the Hu people grazed cattle and sheep, creating a relatively complete ecology that would not make them trapped.
It's just that the room for development is so large, and their headquarters is relatively small. For example, Han Sui only has an army of 40,000 to 50,000 men, and Ma Chao has only 20,000 to 30,000 men. It is necessary to add other princes from the Guanzhong coalition to reach a hundred thousand men. No, Considered powerful.
Even if they can mobilize the Hu Qiang and support two to three hundred thousand people at once, they are all Hu Qiang troops, not their headquarters. Once their troops are damaged, those Hu Qiang kings who sent troops to help them will probably be the first to defect.
Therefore, in terms of future development space, Liu Bei and Cao Cao are about the same, Sun Quan is second, Han Sui and Ma Chao are at the bottom. In a few years, even Sun Quan will have many more troops than them.
Now the four major forces are basically in a truce period.
Sixteen years after Jian'an, there was a brief period of calm in the world. No one took the initiative to provoke war, and no one chose to conquer all directions. Everyone was developing with peace of mind.
There are countless cargo ships on the Yangtze River every day. The rice produced in Jingzhou is shipped to Yizhou. The Shu brocade tea and well salt produced in Yizhou are sent to Jingzhou and sometimes sold to Jiangdong. Although the grain is produced in large quantities, it can only be stored for one or two years at most.
The humidity in the south is too heavy, and it is too easy to get damp and moldy. Even in the high-tech era of later generations, it usually only takes three to six years. Therefore, even if there is no shortage of food in the south, the food in the two places must be kept running, even if it is to take It's better to feed the pigs than to put them in a warehouse to mold.
Under such circumstances, the breeding industry gradually emerged. In just two or three years, the people of Jingzhou and Yizhou had enough food and clothing. There were fewer and fewer people who could not afford to eat. People's lives were getting better and better. The price of food and salt was low. The taste of the Wenjing period.
Shen Chen even considered canceling the Ding tax and apportioning Ding into acres, in order to increase the population significantly.
Everyone knows that the population of our country has often fluctuated around 60 million in the past dynasties. However, after the Song Dynasty, the population soared. The peak population in the Song and Ming Dynasties exceeded 100 million, and in the Qing Dynasty, it reached 400 million.
Some experts and scholars believe that the population of the Song and Ming Dynasties exceeded 100 million because of the double-cropping of rice in the south. In addition, the invention of retting technology in the Song Dynasty greatly increased grain production and the population exceeded 100 million.
The explosive growth of population in the Qing Dynasty was due to the introduction of high-yielding crops such as corn, sweet potatoes, and potatoes, which greatly improved productivity.
But what cannot be ignored is that Yongzheng's diversion of people into acres also provided guarantee for population growth.
Before Yongzheng, all dynasties collected two taxes, population tax and land tax. To some extent, population tax restricted population growth.
People are already poor, so if they have one more child, they will have to pay more taxes, which makes everyone less willing to have more children.
Even if you give birth, you have to find a way to hide it and become a hermit.
This has resulted in a significant increase in hidden households.
After sharing the land without paying the Ding tax, as long as someone has a stutter and can raise their children, they can have children. A family can often have seven or eight children, or even more than ten.
In addition, there was no need to pay the population tax and there was no point in hiding, which resulted in a huge increase in population in the middle and late Qing Dynasty.
Therefore, one of the advantages of dividing the land into an acre is that it can encourage births.
The second advantage is that it makes no sense to hide a household, so people will not conceal the fact of birth, and the registered household population will also be greatly increased.
But Shen Chen thought again and again and still didn't do it.
Because Yongzheng dared to do that because in the early Qing Dynasty, science and technology, military, economy, and productivity had reached the peak of the feudal period, and he forcibly divided people into acres and implemented policies.
But today's era is still too backward. Even if you pluck wool from the mouths of aristocratic families, you can only pluck less than half of it out.
In order to prevent the large-scale rebellion of the aristocratic families, Liu Bei could only choose sticks and carrots. While plundering their wool, he had to find ways to appease them, and he did not dare to really take away all the hidden property of all the aristocratic families.
Including ethnic minorities, the total population under the rule is more than 10 million, and the actual control of half of them is almost the limit. If more people are spread out, the wealthy family will be in trouble.
So haste makes waste, and Shen Chen finally gave up on the idea.
By the time of the 17th year of Jian'an, the strength of Liu Bei's group also exceeded 300,000.
Hanzhong is increasing its troops.
Liu Bei sent people to Xiliang to purchase horses and train cavalry in Hanzhong.
The number of cavalry is not large, only ten thousand.
But this is undoubtedly a powerful force that will play a great role in competing with Cao Cao in the future.
Then Jingzhou also expanded its troops by 20,000, mainly Jiangxia navy.
At its peak, the Jiangxia navy numbered 60,000 to 70,000, but was crippled in several battles. Now it has slowly expanded and has returned to 50,000.
It is estimated that by the 20th year of Jian'an, the total strength of Liu Bei's group will reach about 350,000.
In this way, even considering the issue of rear defense and requiring at least 200,000 troops to be stationed in Yizhou and Jingzhou, Liu Bei was able to mobilize an army of 150,000 for the northern expedition, which was comparable to Cao Cao's strength during the Battle of Chibi.
During this period, the Liu Bei Group was also actively developing military technology. For example, the steel filling method was spread throughout Sichuan and Sichuan. The steel production capacity was greatly increased, which brought changes in weapons and equipment to the Liu Bei Group.
By the 18th year of Jian'an, Liu Bei's army's main front-line troops had reached 180,000, and the second-line county troops had 120,000.
Nearly half of the main force uses steel ring-shaped swords, and the rest are still slowly iterating.
You must know that most of the Huanshou swords in the Han Dynasty were made of wrought iron, but compared to the northern nomads who were still in the pig iron, bone, wood, and Bronze Age, the wrought iron Huanshou swords were already superior in all aspects of technology.
In this way, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty defeated the Huns so that they could not find the north.
Now that weapons have changed from the pig iron era to the steel sword era, the equipment technology of the Han Dynasty has been developed again. In the future, changes in technological progress will further make up for the strength gap caused by the population gap between the north and the south.
And in such a time, from the end of the fifteenth year of Jian'an, it entered a period of peaceful development to the end of the eighteenth year of Jian'an, three years of recuperation, and changes occurred in both the north and the south.
By the 19th year of Jian'an, a new war was about to begin.