The overlapping enfeoffment system instituted by Li Xuan was, on the one hand, to reward meritorious officials and tie more people to the chariot of expansion of the Tang Dynasty, in order to gain support from the upper echelons of the empire.
But on the other hand, it limits the authority of these nobles.
Taking the future Fuso Islands as an example, the King of Qi will most likely vassal the Fuso Islands in the future. At the same time, a certain prince may be enfeoffed to Kyushu Island, and then the Nagasaki area under Kyushu Island may be entrusted to a certain earl.
Or a viscount or something like that, and then a certain town below Nagasaki might be granted to a certain baron.
For example, a certain prince was granted the title of Kyushu Island, then a certain viscount was granted the title of Nagasaki County, and a certain baron was granted the title of a town under Nagasaki County.
The fiefdoms of the above-mentioned barons, earls, dukes, and kings of Qi are overlapped together, and they will share a maximum fiefdom salary of no more than one percent.
At the same time, how much the above-mentioned nobles can take from this one percent depends entirely on the emperor's decision.
If the emperor has bad intentions and directly sets the fiefdom salary of the Duke of Kyushu at 0.99%, then all the nobles in the Kyushu region, including the King of Qi, who can receive fiefdom salary, can only share the remaining
0.01% of...
Such restrictions were intended to give the emperor as much authority as possible and ensure the authority of the central government, and also to prevent fiefdom salaries from being too high and the financial burden being heavy.
Under this overlapping enfeoffment system, no matter how many nobles there are on a piece of land, whether one, a hundred or more, the fiefdom salary that can be provided to the nobles on this land is only one percent at most!
When Li Xuan was considering granting real titles to the clan and nobles and allowing them to receive fief salaries, he also had many considerations. On the one hand, he wanted to fulfill his promise back then and to grant real titles to his ministers.
However, in order to reduce the financial burden on the central government and at the same time to prevent the nobility from becoming too powerful in the local areas, this overlapping enfeoffment system was introduced and the proportion was limited to a maximum of one percent.
This maximum ratio of one percent is the upper limit, but there is no lower limit. The specific number, as long as it is a few percent, depends on the emperor's mood. If he is in a good mood, it will be more. If he is in a bad mood, I will give you a percent.
It is also possible to have multiple zeros followed by one followed by zero.
Therefore, there is no limit to the lower limit, but there is a limit to the upper limit!
If there is no maximum limit of 1%, and there is no overlapping enfeoffment system, then who knows how many overseas territories the nobles will occupy in the future, and they may be able to occupy them all.
Today's top one percent is already a relatively high ratio, and it won't be easy to get any higher.
Although this ratio is very small, if you enlarge the base number, it is a considerable number.
For example, if the tax revenue of the Fuso Islands in the future can reach 10 million yuan, based on the ratio of 1%, this will be 100,000 yuan.
In the future, when the economy develops better and the total tax revenue reaches 100 million yuan, then the fiefdom's salary will reach a million yuan.
Of course, although the overlapping enfeoffment system has complete laws and regulations, it has not been truly implemented, because so far, Li Xuan has only enfeoffed the land of King Qi and King Zhao, and other princes have not yet done so.
, and the heroes are also not there yet.
However, this situation cannot wait for too long, because with the passage of time, the empire has successively conquered large areas of the Northeast and grasslands, and also occupied many places in Southeast Asia.
In addition, another very important point is that the early batch of founding heroes have gradually aged. They have waited for too long for Li Xuan's promise to seal the seal. If they still delay the seal, it is estimated that there will be a lot of trouble.
The nobles who were the founding heroes of the country did not even see their fiefdoms there after they died.
In this general environment, after Li Xuan heard the news that the American fleet had successfully set sail, he walked on the large map hanging on the wall. He was thinking about how to enfeoff the nobles who already numbered thousands.
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Although this kind of real enfeoffment only allows these nobles to have the fief salary and part of the land in the fief, but does not have any administrative power. Similarly, they do not have the power to form a noble guard like princes and princes.
But when such a large group of nobles is entrusted with enfeoffments, one still needs to be cautious!
After all, when Li Xuan enfeoffed the nobles, what he gave was not just land and salary, which was only part of the welfare of the nobles. In addition, a large amount of land would be directly given to them.
These lands will become their private property!
Note that these lands are not fiefdoms, but private property. These are two completely different concepts.
Since a large amount of land needs to be granted, some densely populated places with relatively little developed land are not suitable, because even if Li Xuan wants to enfeoff land, it is impossible to deprive the people of the empire of their land and then enfeoff it.
For those nobles, even giving them land from foreign races must be carefully considered.
We have to consider the balance between the land owned by local nobles and the land owned by common people. If the former owns too much land, it will not be good and will affect local development and people's livelihood.
Li Xuan didn't want to see the people of the empire working as cattle and horses for the nobles, and being bound to the land of the nobles all their lives.
Although the current industrial revolution in the empire means that in addition to farming, people can also work in factories and other other means of making a living, no matter how cautious you are about land, you cannot be too cautious.
For the matter of enfeoffment of nobles, Li Xuan summoned many ministers one after another, all of whom were important officials in the court, such as Liu Bagou, Qian Zuili and others. He also listened to the opinions of some senior military generals.
Among them, Army General Hao Bainian put forward a very interesting plan. He proposed that we should imitate the land allocation system for joining the army in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China and establish a "military merit land allocation system" to encourage more talents to join the army and actively fight.
This proposal was affirmed by a large number of military personnel, but the cabinet was naturally opposed to it.
Because of the system of conferring land for military merit proposed by Hao Bainian, it is said that only those with military merit can confer land. However, the standard of this military merit is too low. Those who have served in the army for one year can be granted a certain amount of land, and those who have served in the army for four years can be granted a certain amount of land.
You can get a lot of land. If you have made meritorious service, you will be granted more land.
Liu Bagou and others from the cabinet said that the efforts made by the military in the establishment and subsequent expansion of the empire are obvious to all. The system of military service and land granting established in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China also played a huge role at that time.
But times have changed, and many things in the past were good at the time, but may not be suitable now.
If every soldier who has joined the army for one year can obtain a large amount of fiefdom, then how can the empire come up with so much land to fiefdom?
Even though there is still a large amount of land stolen by barbarians outside, these lands are always limited, and the military produces hundreds of thousands of soldiers who have served for one year every year. Each of them is sealed, and no matter how much they have, it is not enough.
However, regarding the persistence of the military, Liu Bagou proposed that it is not impossible to confer military merit on land, but the standards must be raised. It does not mean that everyone who has joined the army for one year can be awarded one, or even everyone who has been in the army for four years can be awarded one.
To be granted a title, you must have achieved military merit, and the number of people must be limited.
In addition, during the establishment of the empire and subsequent external expansion, it was not only the imperial military that made great contributions to the empire, but also many people who worked hard in the rear. I will not talk about civilian officials, but many scholars, and even
Logically speaking, it is the workers in the factory who have made great contributions.
If we really want to have fiefdoms, then we should treat them equally, regardless of civil and military workers and peasants, but anyone who has made outstanding contributions to the empire should be able to obtain fiefdoms.
But in the end, all of these were rejected by Li Xuan!
If you join the army, you will be given land, and if you do any work in the rear, you will be given land. This land is too cheap.
The empire already has a system of allocating land to nobles, and will not casually establish a second system of allocating land. If we want to stimulate the enthusiasm of soldiers and ordinary people for external expansion, we can appropriately expand the group of nobles.
After all, the earth is so big. Not to mention the thousands of nobles now, even ten thousand nobles can be accommodated in it.
In addition, the Tang Empire had another very special system, which was the immigration settlement system.
Nowadays, as a citizen of the empire, as long as you are willing to go to overseas territories or border areas, you don’t have to do anything. If you go there, you will get a share of the land. For example, if you go to Luzon, you can get a share of the land. Even if you are penniless,
You can go, because as long as you sign the relevant agreement, you can even buy the boat ticket with a loan!
Therefore, if it is just land for making a living, and it is land in overseas territories, then there is no need to join the army and perform meritorious service. You can just sign up and immigrate.
Finally, after considering various opinions, Li Xuan decided to suspend the system of land allocation for military merit proposed by the military. He also rejected the system proposed by Liu Bagou and other civilian officials to allocate land based on meritorious service regardless of civil or military service.
Instead, they continued to adopt the immigration settlement system and the aristocratic enfeoffment system.
However, corresponding improvements have also been made, that is, under the existing aristocratic system, a new level of aristocratic system, namely Lord, is established under the baron.
At the same time, it is stipulated that the title of Lord is a non-hereditary title, and the scope of the title is relatively large. Those who have made military achievements and those who have made certain contributions in other fields can be awarded the title.
After establishing a new lord, Li Xuan also officially put the enfeoffment of land on the agenda. However, because the impact of enfeoffment was huge, and the number of nobles was also large, and the land occupied by the empire was not too much, so it was just
It is planned to select a few nobles for enfeoffment first as a pilot project.
The first person to receive this honor is the former deputy director of the Military Intelligence Department of the Army Privy Council, an outstanding navigator in the early days of the empire, and retired Army Major General Viscount Wang Shanxi!
The territory he was granted was the Banten Prefecture under the overseas territory Banten Prefecture, which is also the Banten Island.