There is a reason why Li Ye also used the Shannan West Road as a pilot project. The reason is that Bashu is unstable.
'Before the world is in chaos, Shu will be in chaos first; the world is already in peace, but Shu is in peace.'
Now that the world is at peace, the hidden dangers of Bashu still exist. The reason is that Bashu is relatively closed, and the local wealthy families are powerful and have never submitted to the jurisdiction of the court. For example, the military commanders Jia Xiu and Guo Qianren were both from Dongchuan wealthy families, and the wealthy families behind these warlords
The strength is very strong.
Before the separatist regime in Hebei, many warlords in Bashu saw the opportunity for the separatist regime to establish itself, and were ready to take action. In the end, Li Ye took the lead in attacking Bashu and promptly extinguished the Hebei separatist regime, which calmed the restless hearts of these warlords.
However, the symptoms are not cured, and these unstable factors are still there, especially hidden in the hearts of wealthy families.
The reason why Li Ye's army was able to sweep across Dongchuan and Xichuan was because these powerful families hated Yongwang Li Lin, so they borrowed Li Ye's power to kill Yongwang Li Lin. When Li Ye's army entered Sichuan, it was like splitting bamboos, and every prefecture and county it went to
They surrendered one after another.
But once Li Ye touches their interests, they will not hesitate to show Li Ye's face.
The most typical example is that Cui Yuan was dissatisfied with the court's salt monopoly order and deliberately allowed his son to sell private salt and undermine the court's monopoly pilot. Why did Cui Yuan dare to openly defy the court? Because there were officials from more than a dozen states supporting Cui Yuan behind the scenes, and more than a dozen states supported Cui Yuan.
Behind the state officials are actually these local wealthy families.
Historically, the Tang Dynasty divided Bashu into two. Dongchuan was called Shannan West Road and Xichuan was called Jiannan Road. This was to separate the army of Xichuan from the wealthy families of Dongchuan. However, this caused huge harm. Xichuan was too weak.
, alone could not deal with the flanking attacks of Tubo and Nanzhao.
Later, the Tang Dynasty merged Eastern and Western Sichuan and used famous generals like Yan Wu and Wei Gao to finally stabilize Bashu.
However, in the past two years, Li Ye has been relatively supported by the wealthy families in central Sichuan. First, Li Ye essentially merged East and West Sichuan. In name, there are still Shannan West Road and Jiannan Road, but in terms of government affairs, they are the same team.
Wang Wei served as the Observer of Shannan West Road and the Observer of Jiannan Road.
Another important reason was the use of troops against Nanzhao, which almost destroyed Nanzhao and completely eliminated Nanzhao's threat to Bashu.
But this does not mean that in order to gain the support of the wealthy families in central Sichuan, they are condoning the wealthy families in central Sichuan. This time the internal guards conducted a thorough investigation of the east and west roads of Shannan. The number one on the east road of Shannan was the Du family of Xiangyang, with 3,700 slaves.
But compared with the Guo family in Hezhou, Shannan West Road, it pales in comparison. The Guo family estimated that they owned 18,000 slaves, and this was only ten years ago.
The Guo family built a castle on Diaoyu Mountain and sealed it off, so the internal guards could only inquire about the situation in the market at the foot of the mountain.
The entire wealthy family in Dongchuan looks to the Guo family as their leader. The head of the family, Guo Huaiyan, has far more influence in Dongchuan than the observer Wang Wei.
Then the representative of the wealthy family in Xichuan is the Jia family of Qiongzhou. The head of the family, Jia Yuan, is called the King Bao and has a deep relationship with the Xun people. The family has three thousand Xun people warrior servants. Jia Xiu, the military envoy of Qiongzhou, is Jia Yuanzhi.
younger brother.
At present, the interests of the Jia family and the imperial court are the same, both to prevent the Tubo invasion. However, the Jia family has 15,000 slaves, owns half of the salt wells in Qiongzhou, and dominates Linqiong County. Linqiong County has actually become independent of the Jia family.
Kingdom.
This is the underlying reason why Li Ye wanted to promote the abolition of slavery and use it to attack the super wealthy families everywhere.
But Li Ye took it step by step, first solving the wealthy families in Guanzhong and Chang'an, mainly the nobles of Guanlong.
Then there are Shannan East Road and Shannan West Road. In fact, Shannan East Road is easy to deal with. He knows the Huang family and the Du family, so it is easy to deal with them. What is difficult is the wealthy families of Bashu.
In order to prevent the wealthy families in Sichuan from being wary of collusion, Li Ye specifically did not include Jiannan Road, but only solved the Shannan West Road. This might paralyze the wealthy families in Sichuan.
However, there are also experts in Shu. They have long seen through the true purpose of the emperor's implementation of the abolition of slavery, and they have used legal means to attack local tyrants.
Of course, the Guo family's castle in Diaoyu Mountain cannot be compared with Diaoyu City in the Southern Song Dynasty. It also built high walls and many fortifications.
Guojiapu is actually a summer villa of the Guo family. The three Guo brothers spent most of their time in Hechuan City.
The head of the family, Guo Huaiyan, the second child, Guo Qinghua, and the third child, Guo Qianren, each had dozens of wives and concubines, and gave birth to countless children. Those children who were promising went to work as officials in various counties, and those who were not promising went to work as officials in various counties, plus sons-in-law.
He and his disciples are basically all over the prefectures and counties in Dongchuan.
The Guo family in Hezhou is the same as the Jia family in Qiongzhou. Their secret to getting rich is controlling the salt wells in Bashu.
The imperial court implemented a pilot salt monopoly system in Bashu, and Cui Yuan, who resisted the imperial court, was killed for this purpose.
But in the end, the imperial court reached a compromise with Guo, Jia and other wealthy families, purchasing their well salt at fifty cents per catty and selling it to ordinary people at a price of one hundred and ten cents. The difference in price was the salt tax.
Of course, the condition is that these wealthy families are no longer allowed to sell private salt, which barely prevents the proliferation of private salt in various parts of Bashu.
But the good times did not last long. Starting from the beginning of this year, private salt worth 70 cents per catty quietly appeared on the Chengdu market. Although the quantity is not large, the meaning of testing is very obvious. Once the court does not respond, the private salt will be sold immediately next year.
pour out in large numbers.
The price difference of 20 cents per catty was enough to make these Bashu nobles faint. At this time, the emperor's abolition order was advanced to Bashu.
In the study, staff member Li Zhennan pointed to the self-examination order on the table and said to Guo Huaiyan: "This is by no means a simple self-examination notice. Even if the owner declares truthfully and pays taxes truthfully, the inspection will still come and all the account books will be reviewed.
When they investigate the Guo family farm and salt well, they will find that the salt output does not match the amount sold to the government. There is a huge gap. How can the family owner explain it?
There is also the source of those 20,000 salt workers. That is a serious crime of liaison with foreign countries. One person is selling illegal salt and the other is illicitly liaising with foreign countries, which is enough to put the Guo family in danger.
The 20,000 salt workers of the Guo family were actually Tang Army prisoners of war captured by Nanzhao during the Nine-Year Battle of Tianbao, and sold to the Guo family for almost 20 years. These Tang Army prisoners of war have adapted to their status as salt workers and their lives.
It has also stabilized and no one talks about the past anymore.
Perhaps because of the long time ago, the Tang army did not discover this secret during the process of destroying Nanzhao. Once this secret was revealed, a series of problems would be revealed. The Guo family had long sold pig iron and weapons to Nanzhao, and
The Guo family raised 10,000 strong men and had a large private collection of weapons.
Each of these crimes is enough for the Guo family to be confiscated and exterminated, but for decades no one has dared to touch the Guo family, let alone investigate the Guo family, so they are so unscrupulous.
Guo Huaiyan was silent for a moment and said, "What about Mr. Yi?"
"Biji believes that one must repay the other person with his own way. The laws of the Tang Dynasty allow the legal acquisition of slaves. It is reasonable and legal for each of our families to acquire slaves. If the imperial court wants to implement the abolition of slavery, it must first abolish the previous laws of the Tang Dynasty.
Then we will compensate our abolition of slaves. We cannot say that he can abolish the slaves if he wants to, unless the person Li Ye inherits is not the Tang Dynasty, the head of the family. This is Li Ye's biggest weakness!
He claims to inherit the Tang Dynasty, so he must abide by the laws of the Tang Dynasty. Without compensation, his current abolition order is unreasonable and illegal, or it does not target the slaves before the abolition order, but only takes effect on new slaves."
Guo Huaiyan nodded, "That makes sense, but what about his slave tax law?"
"Master, if the skin is gone, how will the hair be attached? Once the abolition of slavery is illegal and we win the fight, the slave tax will not appear again. In fact, our goal is to resist the inspection. As long as it is delayed indefinitely, in the end it will be
Let's leave it alone. If the court wants to investigate other places, we won't care, but we can't investigate Bashu.
Therefore, we need to collectively resist, just like we resisted the salt tax. In the end, both parties compromised. We accepted the abolition of slavery on a face-to-face basis, and then symbolically restored a small number of old and weak slaves to freedom, allowing the government to provide for them in their old age. We don’t care, the court
With the face saved, we have also solved the burden of old and weak slaves, and everyone is happy!"
"That's good. I will post a hero post right now to call on everyone to boycott it. I will also reach a consensus with the Jia family in Qiongzhou to fight the imperial court's abolition order together."
Li Zhennan said slowly: "We must recall Erlang back from Chang'an as soon as possible and prepare for war!"
Guo Huaiyan was shocked, "Will there be another war?"
"Beizong's war preparations refer to the worst-case scenario. Beizong believes that the court does not want to start a war. If both sides can make concessions, the problem can be solved. Head of the family, the abolition of slavery is not a big problem. Beizong is worried about causing other problems.
And the court doesn’t know about these issues, but we actually have the advantage!”
