Chapter 834 The Peasant Army Crosses the Yellow River
After listening to Xue Yongli's words, Wu Shigong felt that what he said was very true. The concentration of land was indeed a big problem!
After thinking for a while, Wu Shigong finally gave the order: "They can no longer hold the land. If we can take it back to them, we will have to collect some reward. Let the Foreign Affairs Department go and talk to each of their families. If they are willing to redeem it, we will give them Runing."
Military industry stocks and bonds; if we don’t want to, we will also be given three to five years of farming rights. With such conditions, they are not at a disadvantage. What we get is land that has been idle for several years, and everything we give back to them is
It is ripe land, and if we try to take advantage of it, it would be too shameless. Also, how much profit we make is secondary. The main thing is that we can resettle the refugees and resume production. And the excess grain grown will be purchased exclusively by us. That’s it.
With the food, our Runing army will be invincible."
Just after this conversation, following Wu Shigong's suggestion, the Runing Army formulated the prototype of its own land policy. This land policy had the following characteristics:
First of all, the Runing Army abandoned the policy of confiscating the land of large landlords, which was commonly used when changing dynasties, but mainly adopted the method of redemption. In the past dynasties, in order to solve the problem of over-concentration of land in the previous dynasty, the court has always adopted a rough method of dividing the land from local tyrants.
The land may not change at all. However, this policy caused continuous reincarnation in each dynasty. At the beginning of the dynasty, due to wars, there were few people and many fields, and social contradictions did not appear. However, in the last years of each dynasty, due to many people and few fields,
, creating a large number of idle people, and if natural disasters are added to it, it will be endless war.
The Runing Army must also solve the problem of land concentration. However, the use of redemption reduces the resistance of landlords, officials and gentry, and reduces social unrest. It is easier to stabilize the society as soon as possible, and it is also easier to obtain the future.
The support of the officials and gentry of the court. This was very important, because the scholars at that time were basically from or funded by officials and gentry families.
However, the rule of the country requires a large number of scholars. It is difficult to imagine a group of illiterate people governing the country. Therefore, before a mature education system is established, these scholars left over from the previous dynasty are more valuable than gold.
The redemption can also distribute land to landless peasants. What the Runing Army pays attention to is the contribution value. The refugees they capture and gather can join the army and allocate land to become self-cultivators after retiring. They can also work as serfs after farming for a certain period of time.
, became freedmen and were allocated land that could support the whole family. Therefore, as the years pass, the land redeemed and confiscated by the Runing Army will be gradually distributed, and the serfs they own will continue to be deregistered. This is fundamentally
Solving the social conflicts at that time was also a great benevolent policy of Runing Army.
Secondly, this land policy has led to a huge change in Chinese people's thinking about land ownership.
In order to solve the problem of land concentration that may arise in the future, the Runing Army formulated a hierarchical taxation system for land. First of all, all land, including that owned by Wu Shigong himself, must pay taxes. This is where the gentry pays grain and allotment taxes.
The policy of one-tenth-acre landownership.
The land grade tax has also caused several huge changes.
One is to change the rules for wealthy landowners to purchase land. Because when a landowner owns land beyond the lowest level, the tax he will pay will increase significantly. Even to the last few levels, the tax he will pay will
It will exceed the land rent it collects. Therefore, the Runing Army uses tax leverage to prevent excessive concentration of land. Of course, the minimum land tax collected by the Runing Army is quite low.
So in this way, those wealthy landowners will invest their spare funds in industry and commerce or deposit them in banks to earn interest. This will also greatly develop industry and commerce, change the industrial structure of the entire society, and eventually transform from feudal society to a relatively gentle one.
Entering capitalist society.
Another point is that the huge amounts of land owned by the big families were placed in the names of their children in order to pay less taxes. However, as time went by, these lands gradually became the property of these children.
Private property. This has greatly reduced the cohesion of those big families and strengthened the centralization of power in the country.
Finally, this land policy also led to the country's colonial expansion.
In order to encourage reclamation, the Runing Army gave those reclamation lands and newly occupied land abroad a long-term tax exemption and low tax period. This allowed the private sector to form a large number of armed trading firms similar to the Jimin Reclamation Trading Firm. They cooperated
The country's military, organized funds, manpower and armed forces go abroad to occupy land.
As a result, the country carried out colonial expansion, and the people cooperated closely, and everyone shared the benefits. This fundamentally changed the long-term situation of laboring people and consuming money to expand territory, and caused a wave of "rushing out of the country" among the people.
.This also provided huge amounts of funds for the establishment of a capitalist society in the future.
Of course, at this time, Wu Shigong could not think so far-reaching at all. He proposed such a decision just to solve the problem at hand. However, in this time and space, the evaluation of this policy was extremely high. Later generations called this policy
"Kaifeng Land Policy".
"Quick row! Throw away all those junk things! King Chuang is going to take everyone to Shanxi and Beijing to eat popular and spicy food. Isn't there anything there? There are also beautiful girls from Datong!" An officer who broke into the camp said
Encouragement said. His words immediately caused a burst of laughter from the soldiers who broke into the camp.
At this time, some thin ice had begun to form on the Yellow River. In order to allow nearly a million people to cross the river, in addition to setting up more than a dozen pontoon bridges on the river, the coalition forces of Li and Luo also collected all nearby large and small bridges.
vessel.
The river was filled with people crossing the river in darkness. However, the morale of the soldiers of the Li and Luo coalition was high, because Li Zicheng told them that breaking into the camp was not to give up the territory in Henan, but to attack Beijing and overthrow the Ming Dynasty.
To establish a brand new dynasty.
"King Chuang is here!" Suddenly someone saw Li Zicheng appearing on the south bank with his guards, and a burst of cheers suddenly broke out on both sides of the Yellow River and on the river.
Li Zicheng took off his felt hat and waved to the cheering crowd with a smile. The cheers were even louder. Everyone believed in Chuang Wang's words, and everyone believed that Chuang Wang would make them live a good life.
Liu Zongmin came up to Li Zicheng and raised his voice and said: "King Chuang, you see, this is what the people want. What bad idea did Cao Cao come up with? He wants to go back to dirty and broken Shaanxi. It's not that I, Old Liu, look down on him. He
This is how it will be for the rest of my life.”
While Li Zicheng kept smiling at the cheering crowd, he reminded Liu Zongmin: "Don't you keep your words in your stomach? Do you know that more words lead to misunderstandings? No matter what, didn't Cao Cao cross the river with us in the end?
?”
On November 25, the 15th year of Chongzhen, more than 80,000 Runing troops and 20,000 Heiyun troops entered Henan Prefecture and launched the final drive against the Li and Luo coalition forces. Before the war,
, Wu Shigong personally wrote a letter and delivered it to Li Zicheng. There was only one sentence in the letter: "Get out of Henan!"
At this time, Luo Rucai returned to his true nature as a rogue, and Li Zicheng also wanted to integrate various forces within the Peasant Army first. Therefore, neither of them wanted to have a decisive battle with the Runing Army now. So on the 26th
On the same day, the peasant army also gradually concentrated in the northwest of Henan Prefecture, preparing to completely withdraw from Henan.
However, Li Zicheng and Luo Rucai had another disagreement about the direction of withdrawal. Luo Rucai wanted to return to Shaanxi, because Sun Chuanting's Qin army was no longer a threat, and Luo Rucai wanted to return home in fine clothes and show his face in front of his hometown elders. To be honest, this Luo Rucai's small farmer mentality
It's indeed serious enough.
However, Li Zicheng's goal was to cross the Yellow River. The most critical factor in making this decision was: if he entered Shaanxi, there was no guarantee that the Runing Army would not follow and pursue him. By crossing the Yellow River, he could completely throw off the Runing Army.
Because the Yellow River has not yet frozen, it is just right to cross the river. In the next month or so, the Yellow River will enter the freezing period, making it impossible to sail at all, and even setting up pontoons is very inconvenient. Therefore, it is left to the peasant army
One month of free time.
Moreover, compared with the ruins of Shaanxi, Shanxi and Beizhili are much richer and have a larger population, which makes it easier for the peasant army to expand their population and plunder supplies. They are also far away from the Runing Army and can establish base areas for the peasant army.
Of course, crossing the Yellow River is also conducive to the propaganda of the peasant army. After all, the coalition forces of Li and Luo were defeated in Kaifeng City and driven out of Henan. However, under the propaganda of Song Xiance, Li Yan and others, they turned into "capture the city".
Beijing City, overthrow the Ming Dynasty!"
Although Li Zicheng's strategy was to first enter Shanxi, build up his strength, then go south to Shaanxi, use the northwest provinces as bases, and then attack Beijing directly. After overthrowing the Ming Dynasty, he would then concentrate all his main forces to compete with the Runing Army in the Central Plains for world supremacy.
The decisive battle. However, this propaganda of the Peasant Army swept away the shadow of defeat, making the officers and soldiers of the Peasant Army seem to be victors, and their morale was high.
But in the end, Luo Rucai still took the overall situation into consideration and finally acted together with Li Zicheng's camp. Although crossing the Yellow River had the disadvantage of being too slow, the Li and Luo coalition had already placed the old, weak, women and children in the rear group. They only needed to ensure that their main force
As long as five to six hundred thousand horses can cross the river safely.
"Has the news from the spies come back?" After receiving cheers, Li Zicheng immediately asked Li Guo about the movements of the Runing Army.
"Butcher Wu has been staying about twenty miles away from our rear team and has not been forced up yet. We are now reporting three times a day. Any news will be reported to you immediately, King Chuang." Li Guo replied quickly.
"How can you report three times a day? At least six reports a day. You have to be careful when searching for information. Don't think that because you are my nephew, I won't use military law." Li Zicheng suddenly said angrily.
"Yes!" Li Guo didn't dare to talk back and immediately went down to deliver the order dejectedly.
The surrounding generals who broke into the camp looked at Li Zicheng, and they all understood in their hearts: Li Zicheng's mental pressure is indeed too great these days! (To be continued...)
ps: One thing to note: November of the fifteenth year of Chongzhen is a leap November, so please make sure to distinguish it clearly.
Also, the number of monthly tickets exceeded 200 last month, which really made me ecstatic.
