Chapter 173: Ge Gongs Virtuous Government, Scenes of the Golden Age
In February of the twenty-fifth year of Jian'an in the Han Dynasty, Liu Bei, the king of Hanzhong, sent his envoy Deng Zhi to make an alliance with Sun Quan, the Han hussar general, and agreed to come together to fight against Cao's traitors.
After completing this matter, Liu Bei, the king of Hanzhong, issued several royal orders in succession.
The first one: Liu Bei, the king of Hanzhong, came to the emperor to tell the former general Guan Yu that he was powerful in China and had done great work in defeating bandits. He was now ordered to be the shepherd of Jingzhou, govern Xiangyang, and supervise all the military affairs in the east.
Liu Bei also added 500 households to the food town of Guan Yu Han Shoutinghou, bringing the total to 1,200 households.
The second way: Liu Bei, the king of Hanzhong, merged the three counties east of Xicheng, Shangyong and Fangling into Hanxing County, and ordered Mi Yang, the general of Guanneihou, to be the prefect of Hanxing and govern Shangyong.
The third passage: Liu Bei, the king of Hanzhong, appointed Chen Dao as the general of Zhendong and the governor of Nanjun to govern Jiangling.
Fourth Road: Liu Bei, the king of Hanzhong, appointed General Guan Ping of Yamen as the prefect of Wuling to manage public security.
Fifth Road: King Liu Bei of Hanzhong ordered General Fu Shu to be the governor of Changsha and govern Changsha.
Sixth Road: Liu Bei, the king of Hanzhong, appointed General Xi Zhen to be the governor of the northern part of Lingling, and was promoted to the governor of Guiyang to govern Chen County.
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Liu Bei issued several royal orders in total to complete the defense and personnel arrangements for various counties in Jingzhou.
In February of the 25th year of Jian'an of the Han Dynasty, Liu Bei issued an order for Wang Jia to return to Yizhou.
In order not to delay the spring plowing in Yizhou, Liu Bei had already arranged for most of the Shu soldiers to be withdrawn to Yizhou. Now there are not many soldiers following Liu Bei back to Chengdu.
Among them are mainly Zhao Yun's Bai Jie soldiers and Mi Yang's 10,000 new soldiers.
After Mi Yang was appointed as the prefect of Hanxing by Liu Bei, he was supposed to lead the troops and take office.
However, most of Mi Yang's 10,000 recruits did not have armor and weapons, so Liu Bei ordered Mi Yang to return to Chengdu with him first. After obtaining a large amount of ordnance from Chengdu's arsenal, he went northward from Chengdu and served in Shangyongzhong.
At the gate of Xiangyang City, a huge royal team was parked outside the south gate of Xiangyang City.
Sitting on top of this magnificent king's chariot in a team of more than ten thousand people, Liu Bei sat in the king's chariot and looked at Guan Yu below. The reluctance in his heart began to ripple again.
Liu Bei looked at Guan Yu, who had gray hair on his temples, and said, "Chang Yun, my brother is leaving, and Jingzhou will be left to you."
Facing Liu Bei's instructions, Guan Yu's face was solemn. He solemnly clasped his fists under the king's command and said: "Please rest assured, my king, as long as I have my ministers here, Jingzhou will never suffer a loss."
Guan Yu's solemn promise rang in his ears, but Liu Bei was not completely relieved after hearing it.
He said to Guan Yu: "You treat your soldiers well and are proud of the scholar-bureaucrats. Although treating your soldiers well can win you military morale and make you invincible.
However, there are many aristocratic families in Jingzhou, so if we want to stabilize Jingzhou, the power of Jingzhou aristocratic families is also crucial."
"Pan Jun has a gap with you. Although this is Pan Jun's fault, you should also take this as a warning to avoid being hurt by hidden arrows in the future."
"Pan Jungu will be brought back to Yizhou, and Ji Changgu will stay in Jingzhou to assist you. Ji Changgu is calm and resourceful, and he comes from a wealthy family in Jingxiang. You should discuss everything with him."
Facing Liu Bei's reminder, Guan Yu had a look of obedience on his face.
Seeing this scene, a smile appeared on Liu Bei's face.
Liu Bei finally said to Guan Yu: "Go back to the city, brother, it's time to leave."
However, Guan Yu did not obey Liu Bei's "king's order".
There was a look of reluctance on Guan Yu's face. This look was rare for Guan Yu, who had always been calm.
Guan Yu bowed to Liu Bei and said, "I will see the king off for a while."
Facing Guan Yu's request, Liu Bei smiled.
There is always a banquet in the world, and Guan Yu has a heavy responsibility, so how far can he send it?
"Drill your soldiers well and stock up on food and grass. I will meet you in Chang'an in the future."
After speaking, Liu Bei ordered the king to set off.
Under Liu Bei's royal order, the military drums of tens of thousands of people in the huge army began to move.
After the military drum sounded, Mi Yang, who was bidding farewell to Guan Ping and others in another place, immediately turned to look at the 10,000-person team that started to take action.
After seeing that Liu Bei's king had already started his journey, Mi Yang immediately bowed to Guan Ping on the opposite side and said, "Frankly, I have to leave."
"See you in the future."
After finishing speaking, Mi Yang pulled the reins, turned the horse's head, and headed towards the king's team ahead.
Seeing Mi Yang's leaving figure, Guan Ping stood behind Mi Yang and shouted: "Zi Sheng, take care!"
Guan Ping's voice drifted to Mi Yang's ears along the breeze. Mi Yang did not look back after hearing this instruction. He just raised the riding crop in his hand and waved it to express his farewell.
Under the illumination of the morning sun, Mi Yang's whip-raising figure turned into a blur of light and shadow, and finally disappeared above the horizon of Jingbei.
...
Departing from Xiangyang City, they first went south to Jiangling and joined Li Yan's army, which had been waiting outside Jiangling City. The two armies finally formed a long queue of nearly 20,000 people and headed towards Yizhou.
After more than half a month of long-distance marching, and after crossing numerous hills and mountains, this huge returning army finally entered the vast Chengdu Plain.
When he first entered the Chengdu Plain, Mi Yang, who was in the army, felt a scene that was completely different from Jingzhou.
In the vast plain, there is a newly repaired official road more than ten feet wide that leads directly to Chengdu City in the distance.
There are tens of thousands of acres of fields on both sides of this official road. Among those tens of thousands of acres, many water canals are interspersed among these tens of thousands of acres under Zhuge Liang's personal planning.
In order to ensure a bumper agricultural harvest, Zhuge Liang attached great importance to farmland water conservancy and irrigation.
There is Dujiangyan outside Chengdu, which was built by Li Bing, the prefect of Qin and Shu counties during the Warring States Period. Since the completion of Dujiangyan, it has been the lifeblood of Sichuan and Shu agriculture.
After Liu Bei took charge of Chengdu, Zhuge Liang conducted on-site inspections and ordered people to repair and improve Dujiangyan.
On the other hand, Zhuge Liang regarded Dujiangyan as the lifeline of agriculture in central Sichuan and recruited 1,200 Ding soldiers to guard it and set up weir officials.
Mi Yang's cousin Mi Wei served as the first Dujiangyan official, responsible for guarding the safety of Dujiangyan.
This move is unprecedented.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! Zhuge Liang’s move has a profound background.
Since the construction of Dujiangyan, the people have benefited from it. When there is a drought, water is diverted for irrigation, and when it rains, the water gates are blocked. As a result, Shu has fertile fields thousands of miles away, and the world calls it Tianfu.
But this scene changed after Liu Zhang and his son came to power.
The first Yizhou Shepherd, Liu Yanai, was an outsider. In order to gain the support of the big families in Shu, he was very indulgent to the big families in Shu. However, Liu Zhang had a gentle personality, which became more obvious after he succeeded Yizhou Mu.
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Under the continuous tolerance and indulgence of Liu Yan and Liu Zhang, the behavior of the wealthy families in Shu became more and more excessive.
Everyone knows that Dujiangyan is the lifeline of agriculture in Sichuan. In order to control this lifeline, most of the wealthy families in Shu have joined forces and sent their families to drive away the ordinary people near Dujiangyan.
Originally, the Dujiangyan Irrigation System was designed to divert water for irrigation during droughts, and block water gates during rainy periods.
However, under the control of the wealthy families in central Sichuan, Dujiangyan completely violated the original design intention and became their private weapon for profit.
"If you follow the lead, you will divert water for irrigation; if you go against it, you will block the water gate."
What's even more outrageous is that in order to expand their own interests, the wealthy families in Sichuan actually dug water canals everywhere after diverting the water from Dujiangyan into the Chengdu Plain, and directed all the water into their own fields.
Originally, the water from the Minjiang River "passed through the two rivers and Chengdu" under the influence of Dujiangyan. However, due to the cunning manipulation of the wealthy people in Sichuan, it turned into "passing through the private fields of the two rivers".
When the wealthy families in central Sichuan controlled Dujiangyan, many people's farmland could not be replenished with water sources, resulting in a large number of fields being deserted.
Under the desolation, the people had no food income, and in the end they had no choice but to sell their fields to the wealthy families in Sichuan.
In the end, all the fields were sold, and the people had no choice but to sell their families and themselves to the wealthy families in Sichuan as slaves and vassals in order to survive.
Later, after Liu Bei captured Chengdu, the Yizhou clan maintained their ownership of the local Dujiangyan in order to please Liu Bei.
They all suggested that the houses in Chengdu and the mulberry fields outside the city should be given to the soldiers, hoping to silence Liu Bei's ministers by sharing the benefits.
But unfortunately, the suggestions of those wealthy families were opposed by a group of ministers headed by Zhao Yun:
"When the Yizhou people first suffered from military revolution, their fields and houses could be returned, so that they could live in peace and resume their work, and then they could be mobilized for military service to their liking."
After that, Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang, who gradually spread their influence across the Chengdu Plain, gradually discovered the rampant behavior of the local wealthy families.
This move was obviously absolutely unacceptable to Liu Bei, Zhuge Liang and their ministers.
They, the monarch and his ministers, only wanted to let the people live and work in peace and contentment, so they could not remain indifferent to the actions of many people who had their families destroyed and their lives destroyed.
As a result, a "Shu Ke" was produced at the right time under the auspices of Zhuge Liang.
Once this law was issued, which mainly targeted the interests of powerful people, those powerful people who had occupied Dujiangyan and preyed on the common people were instantly wiped out.
Before the promulgation of the "Shu Ke", many powerful scholar-bureaucrats in Shu used their wealth and power to bully the common people, causing the people in Shu to think of being in chaos, with eight out of every ten households.
After the promulgation of the "Shu Ke", Zhuge Liang went against his normal temperament and implemented the strategy of "strengthening the principles first, then making them weak".
Liqiang means practicing the rule of law, restricting and cracking down on bureaucrats and tycoons who are "arbitrary and self-indulgent".
If the rationale is weak, efforts should be made to support farmers and develop production.
With the help of the law "Shu Ke", Zhuge Liang used the method of "convict first, then send troops" to sweep away the powerful families who occupied Dujiangyan, liberated Dujiangyan, and finally sent troops to guard it.
Since then, Zhuge Liang personally re-planned the water canals in various parts of the Chengdu Plain, and once again used the water from Dujiangyan for local people's livelihood.
Moreover, Zhuge Liang took the opportunity to clean up some powerful people and rescued a large amount of land and people that had been forcibly bought and sold, thus gradually stabilizing the people's livelihood near the Chengdu Plain.
From then on, the people of Shu were very happy, and they were all grateful to Duke Zhuge for his virtuous governance.
Under Zhuge Liang's rule, the Chengdu Plain was once again prosperous with its "scattered ditches, scattered borders, mismatched borders, oily millet and millet, and uneven japonica rice."
The land of Shu was originally fertile, with rivers and fertile fields. Coupled with Zhuge Liang's careful management, the agricultural output was very high.
Mianzhu, located in the Dujiangyan Irrigation Area, and paddy fields in the Guanghan area maintain records of a yield of more than 30 dendrobium per mu.
At the same time, under the rule of Cao Wei and Sun Quan, the highest record of paddy field yield per mu was not even half of this...
In Mi Yang's sight, many people wearing linen clothes were working in the fields at their feet.
If you look carefully, they all have more or less happy smiles on their faces.
What does it mean to live and work in peace and contentment?
With fields under their feet and food in their hands, this is what all people yearn for to live in peace and contentment.
And all of this was given to them by Zhuge Liang.
Before Zhuge Liang came to power, most of these people were tenants of powerful families and had no personal freedom.
They work hard all their lives and may not even have a grain of their own.
But it's different now, they themselves have become the owners of the fields.
Zhuge Liang devoted his life to restoring the prosperous and prosperous world during the reign of Wen and Jing of the Han Dynasty.
Therefore, even though Zhuge Liang knew that farming would yield more grain and grass, he had not implemented a large-scale farming strategy in Shu since he came to power.
When it comes to farming, there are thousands of miles of fertile fields in the middle of Sichuan, and due to the previous war, a large number of landless people fled from Guanzhong, so it actually has all the natural conditions for farming.
But Zhuge Liang knew very well that once the farming policy was launched, if supervision was abolished and officials invaded the people's interests over time, the people would be greatly harmed in the end. This completely violated his original intention of coming out.
After the army entered the Chengdu Plain, the outline of the majestic Chengdu City in the distance was already looming.
Seeing that Chengdu was getting closer and closer, Mi Yang felt an indescribable feeling in her heart.
In the 16th year of Jian'an, when Liu Bei entered Shu, the young Mi Yang, who was favored by Liu Bei, was also brought into Shu by him.
Later, in the 23rd year of Jian'an, Mi Yang was recalled to Jingzhou because Mi Fang missed her son.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! Mi Yang lived in Shu for eight years from the 16th year of Jian'an to the 23rd year of Jian'an.
This period happened to be the time when Mi Yang's mind and personality were gradually taking shape, so it can be said that Shuzhong is Mi Yang's second hometown.
Mi Yang is very familiar with everything here.
He said to Deng Aiyan beside him: "Shizai, what do you think of the people's livelihood in Shu?"
When Mi Yang finished speaking, a proud smile filled his face.
Although the current scene of people living and working in peace and contentment in Shu is mostly the work of Zhuge Liang, Fazheng, and Liu Ba.
But among the three sages, two were his teachers, which made Mi Yang and Yourong embarrassed.
Deng Ai looked in surprise at the people working endlessly on both sides of the official road and the water channels in the farmland that were like the source of life. He exclaimed spontaneously: "It's really a scene in a book."
Deng Ai has been a farmer since he was a child, so he has his own views on agricultural development.
This was not the first time that Deng Ai had seen these tens of thousands of acres of land. Having grown up in the Central Plains, he had seen hundreds of thousands of acres of land connected.
He has even seen hundreds of thousands of people working in the fields together, which is the foundation of the Central Plains' national power.
But compared to what he saw in the Central Plains, perhaps the scene of land transfer outside Chengdu was not as strong as under Cao Cao's rule, but he felt a very different feeling from the land here.
That's anger.
The north was dominated by the farming system, although farming could collect a large amount of grain and grass for Cao Cao in a short period of time.
However, the people under the farming system were oppressed by the government and lived miserable lives. Most of their faces were numb while working.
As for the people in Sichuan outside Chengdu, when they bowed their heads and worked, their faces were filled with smiles full of hope for the future. This was enough to surprise Deng Ai.
The fields stretch to the horizon, and the people work and laugh constantly.
In the past, Deng Ai only thought that similar scenes were the imagination of the ancients, but he never thought that all this might come true.
Isn’t this the prosperous age?
According to the general, all this is due to Zhuge Gong.
So if one day the world is ruled by Duke Zhuge, will the world's prosperous age come?
Deng Ai became deeply curious about what kind of person Zhuge Gong was.
As the King of Hanzhong's team continued to travel, a group of civil and military ministers were already waiting ten miles outside Chengdu.
Under the leadership of a minister from Yuanding Yuezhi, they were preparing to welcome their king's return.