The final chapter, a new prosperous age, prosperity
After Li Xu heard that his eldest brother had been killed, he expressed great sorrow. He wrote a decree to Li Guangbi and the three armies, saying, "My brother is pure in nature, how can he have any rebellious intentions? He must have been deceived by others. I was extremely sad and gave him a royal burial with the gift of a prince."
state.
Everyone thought that the rebellion was over, but in fact it was far from the case. When Li Xu personally issued an order asking Li Guangbi and others to investigate and purge those who participated in the rebellion, it was written in big red ink: "I would rather kill by mistake."
Don't be indignant, Prime Minister Xu Bin beside him is already terrified.
Is Li Xu's purpose only to eliminate the rebels? Is he using blood to demonstrate his prowess, using means to highlight his iron will, and using his brother's rebellion to completely eradicate the problem of tooth soldiers in Hebei?
Use blood to implement the policy of universal taxation.
Li Guangbi naturally understood this and immediately organized thousands of officials to conduct interrogations. In the end, more than 8,000 Hebei Ya people who participated in the rebellion were sentenced to death. A large number of middle and lower-level captains and generals were also killed. Li Xu's purges continued.
At this point, he also ordered Li Guangbi to investigate Li Chongbao's staff, Youzhou local officials, and subordinate officials below, involving many families such as the Li family, the Pei family, and the Wang family in Longyou in the old days. However, those who were involved were all involved.
They were all accused and killed. In the end, a total of 20,000 people involved in Li Chongbao's rebellion were killed, and 50,000 to 60,000 people were exiled to the Anxi Protectorate.
After the Li Chongbao case, the whole country was silent, and no one had any objections to the new tax system. In order to show that he set an example, Emperor Li Xu abolished the imperial land system and granted more than 20,000 acres of imperial land on the bank of the Wei River to the war effort.
The soldiers with meritorious deeds in the war showed that no one in the country, except the recruited soldiers in service, was allowed to evade the Tiansan tax, otherwise he would be severely punished.
But for the emperor, this was not considered clearly. An emperor has a national treasury and his own private treasury. In order to maintain the operation of such a large palace and repair and maintain the royal gardens, a huge amount of money is needed to support it. Since he issued the edict himself
It was stipulated that the emperor was not allowed to use the treasury. How could he go back on his words? The cancellation of Huangtian also cut off the emperor's source of income. Seeing that the private treasury was gradually emptying, Li Xu had no choice but to fall into financial crisis.
Rongguo Gong Michagan wrote to the emperor, proposing to re-establish the Western Regions Chamber of Commerce. He gave an example that the late emperor managed the Western Regions in Beiting, Anshan, and accumulated a large amount of wealth in just ten years. This wealth maintained the Li family during the entire Anshi Rebellion.
The rapid rise and peace of the world, and the ability to sustain the consumption of five or six years of war, also shows that its amount is huge.
Li Xu knew these things very well, and immediately agreed with Michagan's suggestion, and appointed him as the president of the Western Region Chamber of Commerce, responsible for the commerce and trade of the entire Western Region. At the same time, he issued a decree to the officials of Hexi, Anxi, and Beiting, asking him to
They fully cooperated with the Western Region Chamber of Commerce. It can be said that this organization has been above local power from the beginning.
Michagan himself was a Sogdian, and he had been doing business for many years before following Li Siye. He asked him to re-establish the Western Regions Chamber of Commerce because he was specialized in this industry, but he did not dare to take it lightly and quickly went to seek advice from the former president of the Western Regions Chamber of Commerce, who was also the Great
Xu Bin, the current prime minister of Yong Dynasty, stayed at Xu Bin's house for seven days and nights to gain a lot of experience in accounting books and documents. He also gathered the survivors of the old Western Region Chamber of Commerce to reopen trade routes.
It’s just that after many years, the situation in the Western Regions is no longer what it was before. The nine Sogdian Zhaowu tribes in the river have long been controlled by the black food. However, the Indian Ganges plain west of the Kabul Pass in the Hindu Kush Mountains is controlled by Zhao Congfang.
Moreover, Zhao Congfang hired a large number of Sogdian warriors to serve as imperial guards in Qunu City, treating the entire India as his own territory.
As the richest raw material base, India has a large amount of pepper and spices, and has very fertile land. If Michagan wants to reopen the Western Regions Chamber of Commerce, he must restore the strength of the Western Regions before Tang Tianbao. Veteran Bai Xiaode was also re-appointed by the emperor.
He served as the governor of Anxi and the protector of Anxi. He defeated Dashi and regained control of the Nine Kingdoms of Zhaowu in just one and a half years. He also specially mobilized Xuanwu artillery from Tingzhou and entered the Hindu Kush Mountains.
At the Khyber Pass, they used artillery to destroy the short city wall built by Zhao Congfang and invaded India.
At this time, Zhao Congfang had died of illness and was succeeded by his son Zhao Guanghe. Because the old Tang army under his command missed their homeland and the Sogdian people's loyalty was generally low, the army he sent fell in the first round when they encountered the Yong army.
After the defeat, a large number of fourth-class Indian untouchables were recruited to join the army, but how could these people sacrifice their lives for their enslavers? They fled on a large scale as soon as they encountered the Yong army on the battlefield, causing the Sogdian army to retreat and flee.
Since the top leaders of the Zhao Dynasty's army were all Han Chinese in their late years, they were naturally close to the Anxi Protectorate's troops who came, and Zhao Guanghe's foundation was unstable, so most people tried to persuade him to surrender.
Before Bai Xiaode's army crossed the Indus River, Zhao Guanghe sent people from Qunu City to ask for surrender and expressed his willingness to surrender to Dayong. Bai Xiaode readily agreed, and he took Zhao Guanghe and all the Han people who had not returned to their hometown in India in the past twenty years with him.
Returned to Chang'an.
Emperor Li Xu was naturally overjoyed. He made Zhao Guanghe the Marquis of Tianyi and gave him a residence in Chang'an. The other people who had been stationed in India also received rewards and were given land, silk and money.
After Bai Xiaode occupied India in place of Zhao Guanghe, he naturally did not have the ability to govern such a large area. The area of Anxi and the Nine Kingdoms of Zhaowu was large enough. How could he rule an additional India? He asked Emperor Li Xu what he should do?
Li Xu said that this was easy to handle, and he immediately proclaimed himself the emperor of India, becoming the first emperor to hold two positions. However, he could not personally take care of India's affairs, nor could he divide the administrative divisions of many states like Kyushu in the Central Plains.
Send officials to the far west.
He finally decided to hand over the management of India to Michagan, the president of the Western Regions Chamber of Commerce, and let him manage India in the same way as the Chamber of Commerce. Isn’t the biggest ability of the Chamber of Commerce to plunder and amass wealth? India now has various small countries, which will
They were all divided into Jizhous, and at the same time created hatred between these Jizhous, making it impossible for them to unite. At the same time, he also increased the isolation between castes. Zhao Congfang's original fifth caste could be directly used, and the fifth caste was stipulated.
Castes and Brahmins enjoy privileges, followed by Kshatriyas, which deepens the barriers between castes, which is very conducive to the Western Chamber of Commerce's rule over the entire India.
As long as a small number of Brahmins and Kshatriyas are utilized and they exploit the Vaishyas, Sudras and Dalits at the bottom, the cost of governance will be infinitely reduced.
Michagan opened a large number of pepper spice plantations in India, and at the same time requisitioned a large number of Shudra and Dalit slaves, and hired Vaishyas as overseers, which reduced the operating costs of the Western Region Chamber of Commerce again. He raised Zhao Congfang and Zhao Guanghe and his son
A mixed Sogdian army of 20,000 Han people was raised to maintain rule throughout India.
The reopening of the Silk Road caused the Western Region Chamber of Commerce to grow like a snowball, employing as many as ten thousand staff, and the gold earned from food and European merchants alone reached 130,000 jins per year. Although it had to pay tribute to the emperor and the treasury every year
By turning over 70% of its income, the total wealth of the Western Region Chamber of Commerce still reached 1.9 billion yuan, equivalent to 800 million pieces of purple silk. The Western Region Chamber of Commerce's annual payment is equivalent to one-third of the country's total tax revenue.
Large-scale external plunder made the society of the Yong Dynasty unprecedentedly prosperous, and it took only more than ten years to approach the Tianbao period. Emperor Li Xu, who had tasted the sweetness of colonization, was worried that the Western Region Chamber of Commerce would grow out of his control on the one hand, and on the other hand
On the other hand, he wanted to increase industrial expansion and plunder.
At the beginning of the year, Wei Yingwu, the Minister of Household Affairs, submitted a report to the emperor, listing in detail the development scale of the Western Regions Chamber of Commerce, and wanted the emperor to be wary of the expansion of the Western Regions Chamber of Commerce and its wealth, which could rival the country's.
It is impossible for Li Xu to give up such a money-making machine, and many wealthy families have lost their tax-free rights because of their land. They have also turned their attention to business routes, acting as partners of the Western Region Chamber of Commerce, and constantly sending camel teams to the west to transport goods. At this time,
No one despised the low-level merchants anymore, and even started to compete crazily with the Sogdians.
At this time, Qiu Liuqi, a pirate-turned-businessman from Guangzhou, sailed from Guangzhou through the Strait of Malacca to India. When he saw the plantations run by the Western Region Chamber of Commerce, he suddenly became obsessed with the idea of returning to Guangzhou by ship.
When he came to Chang'an, he tried every means to meet the emperor.
Qiu Liuqi bribed the emperor's confidant eunuchs and wrote a memorial about his idea and submitted it to the emperor. After reading it, Li Xu was overjoyed and immediately summoned Qiu Liuqi into the palace.
Qiu Liuqi spread a nautical chart in front of the emperor and told him in detail the convenience of sea transportation and the rich resources of the Southeast Asian island countries. He advised the emperor that his majesty only needs to use manpower to open a few docks overseas.
, you can continuously exchange for a lot of wealth, and you can also save the Western Region Chamber of Commerce’s huge land transportation costs.
Emperor Li Xu naturally did not have such simple considerations. Not only did he need another chamber of commerce to break the monopoly of the Western Region Chamber of Commerce in India, but he also did not want to limit his plunder of India to spices and pepper. The standard for measuring prosperity in an agricultural society was population and
Per capita grain possessions. Although the unprecedented development of trade routes in the Western Regions has brought social wealth to a high level, it will take some time to recover from the damage to farming caused by the war. He wants to expand rice fields in India and then transport a large amount of grains.
Return to China to bring down the high domestic food prices.
Li Xu appointed Qiu Liuqi as the president of the Nanyang Chamber of Commerce, responsible for the preparation of ocean-going merchant ships, and ordered the expansion of gunboat production, split the Yangtze River Navy into a Nanyang Navy, and appointed Li Sheng, an old general of the Tang Dynasty, as the general manager of the Nanyang Navy, mainly responsible for
Maintain trade route operations,
Qiu Liuqi established more than 20 land and water terminals along the coast of India, and began to use sea ships to transport goods back. The freight volume of pepper and other spices suddenly expanded four to five times. In just two years, the price of pepper went from
The price dropped from 600 guan per catty to 130 guan per catty. The price drop made pepper and other spices no longer a luxury product for the nobles, but also successfully entered the dining tables of ordinary people.
Of course, Qiu Liuqi could not forget the emperor's request. He ordered people to bring the best varieties of rice from the south of the Yangtze River to India by ship, where they were transported to the local area for slaves to cultivate. He continued to expand the number of acres and expanded it to 80 million acres in just three years.
acres, and used merchant ships to bring back hundreds of thousands of stones of grain for Dayong every year.
As grain stocks increased, the price of grain gradually dropped. The emperor ordered all more than 1,600 counties to maintain a constant warehouse to prepare for disasters and balance grain prices. At the same time, dozens of warehouses were built along the canal.
In Gecang City, each stock amounted to more than ten million dan. The emperor even announced that he would eradicate famine. He stood in the Xuanyuan Hall and told the people of the country that the stored grain must be able to prevent a three-year drought that would devastate the country.
Emperor Li Xu believed that the existing canal volume could no longer bear the increasing transportation volume. He waved his hand and pointed at the coastline and said: "There must be twenty ports and lighthouses along the coastline, and several short lines must be dug from the canal to the outlet.
The canal enables the inner canal and outer sea transportation to be gradually connected."
He ordered Prime Minister Xu Bin to carry out planning and deployment, mobilized 200,000 manpower every year, and built more than 20 docks and lighthouses along the coast within five years, successfully replacing 30% of the canal's transportation volume.
The huge success of the Western Regions Chamber of Commerce and the Nanyang Chamber of Commerce saw the benefits for many wealthy families who were not exempt from tax on their land. They formed fleets to go to Southeast Asia and India to pan for gold. Larger caravans even reached Dashi, and they sold their products.
Jun porcelain and silk were exchanged for a large amount of gold.
Due to the booming development of commerce, the existing Tongbao coin currency could no longer meet economic needs, and the large amounts of gold and silver brought by commerce gradually occupied the transaction of bulk goods. The emperor simply followed the trend and minted gold, silver and copper coins, and the world entered