With the retreat of the Qin army, a massive Five Kingdoms attack on Zhao came to an end.
Including the Chu State, all the seven kingdoms were severely weakened, the country was in dire straits and the people were exhausted. There was no big movement in a short period of time, and the world was finally able to enjoy peace for a period of time.
As for the Chu State, although it did not attack Zhao, it was defeated by Wei Ran and Sima Cuo in the previous battle against Qin, losing hundreds of thousands of troops.
Afterwards, a hundred thousand troops were launched to suppress the East Vietnamese rebellion. Although East Vietnam was finally defeated, nothing was gained. Several counties were also looted by East Vietnam, resulting in heavy losses.
After the Dongyue were defeated and fled, they hid in the mountains. The Chu State could only watch with blank eyes. There was nothing they could do against them and they were forced to withdraw their troops.
…
After Bai Qi returned to Xianyang, he was summoned by the King of Qin. However, the King of Qin did not punish Bai Qi for withdrawing his troops privately. Instead, he felt that he had done the right thing and rewarded Bai Qi with many fields and slaves, and even gave him a grandson.
title.
After Bai Qi came out of the palace, his expression was as expressionless as usual. There was no joy on his face. He didn't know what he was thinking in his heart.
Immediately afterwards, King Qin received news of the alliance between the three Jins.
Unlike Yan and Qi who were forced to form an alliance with Zhao, South Korea and Wei were obviously voluntary and formed a closer alliance.
King Qin looked at the map, his face full of sorrow. On the map, the State of Qin was in the west, and in the east from north to south were Zhao State, Hedong of Wei State, Sanchuan, Nanyang, and Chu State of South Korea.
The Three Jin Dynasties blocked the east road from Qin State tightly.
When the three Jin Dynasties were separated, no one was the opponent of Qin.
But if the three Jins unite, no country in the world can be their opponent!
"Invite the prince, Yinghou Fan Ju, Ranghou Wei Ran, and Wu'an Lord Bai Qi." King Qin said to the eunuch next to him.
"No." The eunuch bowed and bowed, then walked out of the palace in small steps.
"Wait a minute." King Qin suddenly stopped the eunuch. "Invite Lu Buwei, the stranger's retainer, too."
…
Compared with Qin, life in Zhao was much more comfortable.
After subduing the five countries, Zhao State has become a veritable overlord of the world, and the tariffs between the three Jins have been cancelled, allowing merchants from the two countries to continuously pour into Zhao State, bringing a large amount of food and money to Zhao State.
The states of Yan and Qi also continued to deliver food to the state of Zhao due to war indemnities. In addition, the state of Zhao was prosperous within the state of Zhao.
After returning to Handan, Zhao Kuo immediately rewarded the generals based on their merits.
Lian Po was granted the title of Lord Wu of Dudu and was given the title of Wei Wen.
In fact, if we only focus on his contribution to the State of Zhao, Lian Po is far superior to Le Yi and Tian Dan. However, because the domestic flowers do not have the fragrance of wild flowers, the title has always been lower than that of the two. Now the three are finally the same.
Yan Zhou was granted the title of Lord Pingshu and the title of Pingshu.
Yanzhou was also a veteran of the Zhao State. He had made great contributions to the Zhao State, but his reputation was not obvious. This time in the battle between Zhao and Yan, he defeated the Yan army's vanguard and captured the Yan army's commander and vanguard Rong Xiao, which was enough to make him the king.
Li Mu was named Shangqing.
Tian Dan and Le Yi also increased their food estates.
The other generals also received rewards.
After more than two months of recuperation, Lin Xiangru's body finally recovered. After getting Xiangzi's permission, he immediately devoted himself to the construction of Zhao State and personally took charge of Zhao State's summer farming.
This year's spring plowing has left a lot of farmland idle due to the war, and we have to rely on summer plowing for food.
"Thank you for your hard work, sirs." Zhao Kuo came out of the harem and came to where Yu Xin and others were working. He bowed and bowed.
It is said that after he came back, the Yan family had no feelings about him defeating the Five Kingdoms, but she was very satisfied with him bringing back two daughters-in-law after a battle. She took An Ning to look around, and the next day, she sent someone
I sent a betrothal gift to An Ning's family.
At the same time, Huolong was sent as an envoy to Qi to discuss the wedding time.
"Good morning, Your Majesty." All the ministers saluted, and after Zhao Kuo sat down, they also returned to their seats.
Originally, after Zhao Kuo came back, Yu Xin and others wanted to return to their respective homes to work as before, but Zhao Kuo thought this was good, so he kept it and just added his own position.
The desk in front of him was filled with papers. Some of them had been processed and needed Zhao Kuo to take a look at them. Some of them had not been processed yet and needed Zhao Kuo to deal with them.
All these documents are in paper form.
After day and night research by Mo Feng and others, the paper was finally invented. Although the color is still a little yellow and the thickness is uneven, it is no longer a problem for writing text, and Mo Feng and others are still improving it.
It is said that after the Zhao Kingdom became powerful, the Mohist family also became stronger and stronger, and Mo Feng even began to proudly call his branch Zhao Mo to distinguish it from other Mohist families.
Not to mention, the name Zhao Mo is quite useful. Recently, Mohist disciples from other places have been coming to join them.
Of course, there are also those who are dissatisfied with Zhao Mo and want to establish another one.
Several factions compete in the arena together every day, competing from debates to hands-on skills to techniques, but no one can convince anyone.
Zhao Kuo didn't say anything after seeing it. He just silently told them the principles and research directions of cement, porcelain, glass, steel-making furnaces and other things, and asked them to start research.
Then this group of people began to work overtime until midnight every night, completely losing their mind to fight.
The site of Handan College has also been selected, covering a very large area from the Zhangshui River to Zijin Mountain, but construction has not yet started.
I heard from Mo Feng that cement is about to be developed. He plans to wait until the cement is completely developed before building Handan College into the world's first cement building, and when the time comes, his name will be engraved on it.
Anyway, if rammed earth is used, it will take at least two or three years to complete. Once cement is developed, it will be built in a few months. It will not be short of this time. Maybe using cement will be faster.
Zhao Kuo casually took an article. If these articles have been approved, take a general look at them and make sure you know what they are.
If there is no approval, he will be responsible for solving it.
Fortunately, Zhao Kuo had the vision and knowledge reserves of later generations, as well as the talent of talking on paper. Most of the problems could be answered at a glance, and a few of them only needed to be thought about.
The processing speed is faster than that of Yu Xin, Lin Xiangru and others.
"Your Majesty, the results of the awards are out." At this time, Le Yi walked in from the outside holding several rosters.
Zhao Kuo took over the list. He was very relieved about Le Yi and others, but he still needed to check it.
After looking through it in general, no obvious omissions were found. Zhao Kuo closed the roster, looked at Yu Qing next to him, and asked: "How much food do the internal historians and the young master have? Can they support the reward?"
"Your Majesty, because the work-for-relief program has not stopped, the internal history and the Shaofu do not have much food. However, after the summer grain harvest, coupled with the compensation from Qi State, merchants have been pouring into our country recently, and the commercial tax has been
It has reached twice the previous peak. If distributed separately, our Zhao country can support this reward." Yu Xin said with a smile.
The summer grain of Zhao State was mainly winter wheat. Winter wheat had been planted in the Spring and Autumn Period, and by the Warring States Period it had spread throughout the Central Plains.
However, due to the taste, the planting area is not very wide and it cannot provide much tax revenue.
But the compensation was too large, and Zhao Kuo had robbed a lot of money from Qi State.
It can even be said that if some of the rewards were erased as before, Zhao would not only be able to pay them in full, but would even be able to live a very wealthy life.
The soldiers would not have any complaints because they had long been accustomed to it. In other words, they never expected to get all the rewards.
"Didn't there still be some rewards that have not been distributed in the last battle against Qin? Together, all the rewards will be increased by 20% and distributed in three times. Half will be distributed first. After the summer plowing is over, the remaining half will be distributed. After the autumn harvest,
All distributed." Zhao Kuo handed the roster to Le Yi.
"Your Majesty, isn't this good?" Yu Xin said hesitantly.
Since ancient times, there have only been rewards for small amounts of money, how can there be rewards for large amounts of money?
"What's wrong?" Zhao Kuo looked at Yu Xin strangely.
"It's about the reward," Yu Xin said.
"The soldiers have been fighting for the country for several years and have not returned home. Why are they given an extra 20% reward?" Zhao Kuo said.
"What the king said makes sense, let's send more." Yu Xin did not insist. Anyway, Zhao Kuo's finances are not unable to support it. Since Zhao Kuo wants to send more, then send more. Who makes Zhao Kuo the monarch?
"Then the general will go down first." Le Yi said with his hands in hand.
Zhao State was short of manpower, and he would be responsible for issuing rewards in the future. There was no other way. Who told him not only to fight, but also to govern the country?
Able people should do more work.
"By the way, why hasn't Xunzi come back yet?" Zhao Kuo asked strangely.
Zhao Kuo knew that Xunzi had been busy these days trying to find out the corruption and reward issues. Many times he had to go to the villages or towns in person to check whether things were true or false. But it was logical that he should come back. It was impossible for him to go to every village in person.
Go for it!
"On his way back, he heard about large-scale corruption and rewards in Jinyang, so he turned around and went to Jinyang, but he should be back in the next few days." Yu Xin said helplessly.
"How much corruption has been discovered so far?" Zhao Kuo asked in a deep voice. He was about to issue another reward. He would never allow anyone to embezzle the money that soldiers exchanged for their lives.
"In the last reward alone, it was determined that more than 11,000 officers and soldiers had been corrupted, and more than 1,000 officials and squires were involved, ranging from village chiefs to county magistrates," Yu Xin said.
"Where is the county guard?" Zhao Kuo couldn't help clenching his fists when he heard this, and a murderous aura rushed out of his body.
In addition to Shangdang County and the three newly established counties, Zhao State also has Yanmen County, Yunzhong County and Dai County.
If necessary, he would not mind starting a war in Zhao Guozhong.
"No county governor was found to have embezzled rewards." Yu Xin shook his head.
When they reach the level of county governor, what they seek is no longer money and ordinary land, but fiefdom and family education. Only with these two things can they become true nobles.
"All the officials and gentry who have been found to have embezzled rewards will be beheaded and their homes will be confiscated. For serious cases, the whole family will be executed. The money and land will be distributed to the soldiers and people who suffered." Zhao Kuo said sternly, without any mercy. "Not yet.
For those who have found out, let Xunzi continue to investigate until they are all found out, and don't let anyone go."
After several battles, Zhao Kuo is no longer the soft-hearted young man he used to be.
If he had been soft-hearted, he wouldn't be alive today.
"No." Yu Xin said.
"By the way, the war is over now and the soldiers have all gone home. The officials who asked the soldiers who have returned home to assist in the investigation should know more about this kind of thing based on their status." Zhao Kuo said.
Yu Xin suddenly felt a cold feeling all over his body. Zhao Kuo really did not intend to let go of any official who had embezzled rewards.
He had a hunch that there might be a turmoil in Zhao's officialdom.
But...he couldn't stop it...
Based on his understanding of Xunzi, Xunzi would not only not refuse the order, but would be even more excited after hearing the order.
This guy seems to be a Confucian, but in fact he is a Legalist at heart.
Legalists... are a group of ruthless people who are willing to sacrifice themselves for the law...
"Let the dead die, what does it have to do with me!" Yu Xin lowered his head and continued to deal with government affairs.
No matter how big the turmoil is, it is impossible to threaten Zhao Kuo's rule. Not to mention the 300,000 troops, just talk about the several big nobles of the Zhao Kingdom, the Zhao family, the Le family, the Pang family, the Xun family, the Fei family... all of them.
They were standing behind Zhao Kuo. The Lou family had been uprooted, and the remaining small nobles had nothing to do with Zhao Kuo.
Besides, Zhao Kuo is not against all nobles.
"Create land?" Zhao Kuo picked up the last book, which was also the thickest one.
The foundation of a country lies in land, and land here refers to land that can be cultivated. Land that cannot be cultivated was nothing in ancient times.
Although the territory of Zhao State is large, the quality of the land is incomparable to that of South Korea and Wei State.
Although South Korea and Wei State have small territories, they are located in the Central Plains. They have fertile soil that has been developed for thousands of years. Many places can produce two crops a year.
There is still a lot of land left uncultivated in Zhao State. Even if it is developed land, only a few can be harvested twice a year. Most of them can be harvested once a year and even have to take turns to rest.
For this reason, Zhao Kuo specially issued an order to encourage the people to reclaim wasteland.
"Why did you only cultivate the land that had been uncultivated due to the war in the past two years, and not cultivate new fields?" Zhao Kuo opened it and took a look, his face instantly darkened, and he asked in a deep voice.
What is the most abundant land in Zhao? It is wasteland. If it is only to cultivate farmland that has been cultivated before, then what order does he give?
"Your Majesty, the people are not active in reclaiming wasteland and are even very disgusted with it." Lin Xiangru said with a wry smile.
"Why?" Zhao Kuo felt a little strange.
According to the laws of the State of Zhao, as long as it is wasteland, whoever reclaims it will cultivate it. The more land there is, the more food the people will get. Logically speaking, there should be many people who will reclaim the wasteland.
"There are many reasons for this. The main reason is that the wasteland is full of raw soil and the yield is too low. Only after three years of cultivation can it turn into mature soil and the yield is stable. In these three years, there is no harvest from the land.
It can barely offset the seeds. However, after the land is reclaimed, it must be turned over to the court for tax. With the tax, the farmers get less food instead of more. If the annual harvest is not good, other farmland can still be harvested to some extent, but the new farmland will still have some harvest.
The cultivated farmland also needs to be planted with seeds.”
"In addition, although our country of Zhao has a lot of wasteland, almost all the land that is easy to cultivate has been cultivated. Most of the remaining land is land that is difficult to cultivate, either the terrain is too high or the terrain is too low. There are dense water networks downstream of the river.
Many of them are swamps, and there are also saline-alkali lands near the sea, which are extremely difficult and costly to develop."
Lin Xiangru said helplessly.
Although the taxes of the State of Zhao are not as heavy as those of the State of Qin, they are not light either. They implement ten taxes and one tax. In addition, with the oral tax, the burden on the people is still relatively large, and their ability to withstand risks is also low. If there is no harvest in a year, the whole family will starve to death. There is no
People dare to take risks.
This does not count the situation of exploitation by the gentry. If there is exploitation by the gentry, the people's life will be even worse, or they may have to move. This is the so-called harsh government that defeats the tiger.
Zhao Kuo put down the paper, took a sip of tea, and after a moment, said: "Since the main issue is tax, then no tax will be paid on newly reclaimed farmland for three years, and half tax will be paid from the fourth to fifth years.
Normal taxation will be restored after five years. As for the saline-alkali land on the seashore, I will order the captives of Yan State to reclaim it. In other places, we can rely on work-for-relief to build water conservancy projects."
"This is a good idea." Lin Xiangru's eyes lit up.
By canceling the tax for the first three years, farmers will not have to worry about making ends meet and can reclaim wasteland with confidence. Only half of the tax will be charged in the fourth and fifth years, which will also increase farmers' ability to resist risks.
Moreover, with the development of water conservancy, many places that are not suitable for farming will become suitable for farming.
Speaking of rent and tax, Zhao Kuo couldn't help but think of the tax system of Zhao State - tax per mu.
This system also starts from the initial taxation of acres in the State of Lu during the Spring and Autumn Period. This system changed the previous public land system and changed it to levy taxes on an acres basis.
As long as it is ownerless land, anyone can plant it, plant as much land as they want, harvest as much grain as they want, and pay as much tax as they want, which greatly stimulates productivity and brings generous taxes to the country.
Other countries followed suit, including Jin. After the three families were divided into Jin, the system of Jin continued.
Although Zhao State went through several reforms in the middle, the overall situation remained unchanged.
There seems to be no problem with collecting taxes per acre, but in fact there is a huge problem.
That is because of the limitations of ancient tax collection capabilities, which made it impossible for the country to go door to door to count the land harvest of each household and then collect taxes accurately.
The state stipulates that one is drawn out of ten, but later it may become one out of nine, one out of eight, or even one out of five. The extra draws are not handed over to the state, but are embezzled by the squires, or used to offset the squires themselves.
part, but in the end, the country took the blame.
In order to solve this problem, the Qin State implemented the system of "taxing people instead of land" after Shang Yang's reform, that is, the land tax was levied not on land but on population.
The world has been at war for hundreds of years, and all countries are basically in a state of more fields and less land. Everyone has a part of the land, and the country also hopes that people can plant more land. Therefore, Shang Yang's reform directly set a fixed tax amount, and then collected taxes based on capita.
.
However, this tax based on head count is not a head tax. There is another tax on head, which is called oral tax. You must pay no less.
Taxes and taxes are separate. Taxes were originally used for war, such as requisitioning chariots, armor, weapons, etc. They would not be levied unless there was a war.
Later, it became collected every year, and it was no different from a tax.
The system of "taxing people without paying land" had no problems in war years, but in peacetime it led to a phenomenon: land annexation.
Since rents and taxes are collected on a per capita basis, the more land the better, so big bureaucrats and big landowners began to annex land crazily.
What should people do if they lose their land? Sell themselves into slavery, or flee and become refugees. If there are more refugees, they will rebel, and then they will change dynasties...
This problem was not obvious in the Qin Dynasty. After all, the Qin Dynasty was short and disappeared before it appeared in time.
The phenomenon of land annexation in the Han Dynasty was very obvious, which was also one of the main reasons for the demise of the Han Dynasty.
Ps: I originally wanted to write this chapter about reforming the tax system, but I thought that in the middle of the night, I couldn’t think of a good tax system, which made me feel uncomfortable. I have to say that although Shang Yang’s tax system has great hidden dangers, considering the actual situation at the time, it was already the best.
A good tax system.
The Han Dynasty did not take into account its own actual situation and insisted on copying it, which resulted in a big pitfall.
If you have any good ideas, please tell me in the comment area. The author is not intelligent enough and the stuck is too uncomfortable.
