The amnesty plan drafted by Du Siye has been placed on Guo Song's desk. The plan includes all prisoners and captured prisoners of war under the jurisdiction of the Jin Palace, as well as more than 10,000 prisoners of war mining in Lanzhou and more than 40,000 Uighurs stranded in Yunzhou.
.
During this period, the new Khan of Huihe collected captive Tang Dynasty slaves from all over the grasslands and came to Yunzhou to exchange prisoners of war. The exchange of more than 100,000 people has been completed, but more than 42,000 people are still stranded in Yunzhou, mainly
The Uighurs could no longer produce slaves, so the two sides could only conduct a second round of negotiations to exchange supplies for prisoners of war.
Guo Song thought for a moment and said, "Go and ask Pan Changshi to come over quickly!"
Not long after, Pan Liao came in a hurry. Guo Song asked him to sit down and ordered the tea boy to serve tea.
Pan Liao smiled and said, "Congratulations to Your Highness for having another son."
Guo Song smiled bitterly and said: "The child was born prematurely and has congenital deficiencies. I am very worried that he will die young. I am considering implementing an amnesty. There are some things I want to discuss with Chang Shi."
Pan Liao nodded, "I fully support His Highness's decision on amnesty. Does the amnesty also include prisoners of war?"
"This is what I want to discuss. Currently we have prisoners of war in two places. One is in the Lanzhou Iron Mine, and the other is the Uighur prisoners of war in Yunzhou. I would like to hear Chang Shi's advice."
Pan Liaoluo thought for a while and said: "The Lanzhou Iron Mine is easy to solve. Change the prisoners of war to miners and pay them three times a month. If they are unwilling to stay, then recruit them again. There is no problem in recruiting miners and it will not affect the mine.
"
Guo Song nodded, "What about Yunzhou?"
"Zhang Qianyi is currently in full charge of negotiations in Yunzhou. There are also Huihe negotiators there. His Highness can finalize the negotiation plan immediately and request it to be completed within three days. In this way, the amnesty will be promulgated after three days, which will not affect the prisoners of war in Yunzhou and become a true amnesty.
."
Guo Song took a few steps with his hands behind his back and said slowly: "Then let Huihe provide wood. This request is not too high. If both parties sign an agreement, the prisoners of war can be released early!"
Within an hour, a letter with a red mailbox tied to its leg flew to Yunzhou, containing Guo Song's personal order.
On the afternoon of the next day, Sima Zhang Qianyi, who was in charge of negotiations in Yunzhou, reached an agreement with the Uighur envoy An Chong. The Tang army would release the last 42,000 prisoners of war, and the Uighur army would deliver 100,000 five-foot-long or more war prisoner to the Tang army within the next year.
At the same time, the Tang army promised that if the Uighurs could abide by the agreement, the Tang army would not attack the Uighurs again within three years.
On the day the agreement was signed, the Tang army announced a release order to the Uighur prisoner-of-war camp. There was great joy in the prisoner-of-war camp, and they would be taken back to the royal city by Uighur soldiers one after another.
Zhang Qianyi immediately reported to Guo Song with an eagle letter. Early the next morning, Guo Song officially issued an amnesty order and an abolition order. All prisoners, prisoners of war, and official slaves under the rule of the Jin Palace were released, and household registration discrimination was abolished.
The cancellation of special household registrations such as slave registration, music registration, craftsman registration, military registration, etc. will all be regarded as civilian registration.
It is not difficult to implement the abolition order. The key is that it contains the abolition order, which is related to the vital interests of many large landowners. Guo Song did not enforce it forcefully, but held discussions and representations, tried not to harm the interests of everyone, and adopted the redemption method.
and the means of voluntary abolition and compensation.
Redemption is relatively simple. Each slave is redeemed by the government at a price of ten coins. If the slave is voluntarily abolished, the government will compensate it in terms of taxes and honor.
The deregistration order has been discussed for a full year, and finally a unified consensus among all strata was reached.
The slaves hidden in manors in various places will be converted into civilians. As compensation, for every slave released by the manor owner, he will receive a ten-year tax-free tax on one hectare of land. If more than ten slaves are released, the manor owner will also receive a title, up to the county magistrate.
, and allow hereditary inheritance.
In addition, the slaves were replaced by an employment relationship with the manor owner. The slaves gained personal freedom and their income increased. The key was that the population controlled by the Jin Palace would increase by 30%, which was of great significance to the expansion of the Jin army's strength.
The decree of abolishing nationality issued by Guo Song caused an uproar in the world. There were supporters, scolds, and doubters. However, Guo Song recovered the Western Regions, went on an expedition to Huihe, and almost destroyed the country in Huihe. His reputation in the world has been at its peak, so
When he introduced the annulment order and abolished slave status, he was scolded and questioned, but no one dared to challenge him with action.
In Chengdu, for several days, Emperor Li Shi scolded Guo Song for his arrogance and issued an order to abolish slavery without his consent. This was an order that would shake the country. It should be done with caution, and even if it was issued,
It should also be promulgated by the emperor's order. What does their Jin Dynasty order mean?
Of course, it was impossible for Li Shi to issue such an order. He still had a large number of slaves in his own palace! Speaking of the palace, most of his palaces are gone. The palaces in Guanzhong and Luoyang have been confiscated by Zhu Si.
, only a few grand palaces in the south of the Yangtze River remain.
Li Shi was extremely dissatisfied with Guo Song in the past few months. The fundamental reason was the defeat of Guanzhong. He wanted to recapture Guanzhong, but his entire army was destroyed and more than 30,000 people were lost. However, Guo Song could obviously recapture Guanzhong, but he stood still and delayed.
As time went on, the people in Guanzhong's sense of identification with the Tang Dynasty really gradually faded away.
Li Shi was so anxious that he had no choice but to get angry in the palace every day and cursed Guo Song, making the maids and eunuchs tremble with fear as if they were walking on thin ice.
That morning, Li Shi sent people to find the Right Prime Minister Zhang Yanshang and the Left Prime Minister Cui Zao, and they scolded them.
"Is this your logistics support? It has been two months since the Ministry of War has not been able to recruit even 10,000 troops. Now there are only 60,000 troops in the entire Tang Dynasty. Zhu Si wants to attack Jianghuai and Jiangnan. What do you want me to do to deal with it? Nanzhao
I can't send troops to suppress the riot, and Xichuan Jiedu Mansion has been destroyed in name only, with less than two thousand troops. How can I deal with the Tibetan invasion? Do I support you two prime ministers just to make a living?"
Zhang Yanshang and Cui Zao looked at each other for a long time, and Zhang Yanshang said with a bitter face: "The main reason is that the continuous defeats in these years have caused heavy casualties, and our pensions are not in place, which makes the people hate joining the army. Moreover, the people in Bashu tend to be comfortable and generally unhappy.
If our recruitment conditions were higher, some people might be willing to join the army for money, but the government’s finances are tight and they really can’t come up with more money, so of course the people are not willing to join the army.”
Li Shi slammed the table and said angrily: "I don't want you to complain. I want to solve the problem. What should I do if I recruit an army? I asked to recruit an army of 100,000 people, but you only recruited 7,000 people. What do you think we should do to solve it?"
Cui Zao was silent for a moment and said: "The fundamental reason is still the financial difficulties of the imperial court. Wei Chen and Zhang Xiangguo have previously proposed a solution to the lack of financial resources. They should hand over all taxes to the imperial court to suffice the imperial court's fiscal and taxation, so that we can spend more
With money and food to recruit soldiers, we can definitely recruit not only an army of 100,000, but also 50,000 troops, but His Majesty has always disagreed with our plan."
How could Li Shi agree? Commercial taxes, intervening taxes, tea and wine taxes, etc. are all controlled by Beiya. There are millions of dollars in revenue every year, and most of them go into Li Shi's private treasury. If it is handed over to the imperial court
, what to do with his private income?
Li Shi would never accept such a plan that seriously harmed his vital interests.
After a long while, Li Shi said coldly: "I knew you were planning to use the inner treasury, but I can't do it. The salt tax, land tax, and household tax are all given to the court. You still don't complain enough. Where are you spending your money?"
Already?"
"Your Majesty, the imperial court's expenditure report is submitted to your Majesty for review and approval every month. Your Majesty is very clear about the income of the imperial court. Jiangdu's salt tax has not been delivered for more than half a year, and the land tax cannot be collected at all. The imperial court can only rely on
The meager income from official land rent, house rent and household tax can barely support us and maintain the most basic operation of the court. However, the monthly military salary for our army is 200,000 guan. We have already owed it for three months, soldier.
There is going to be trouble, and the salaries of hundreds of officials in the imperial court have not been paid since this year..."
"There is a problem with the land tax!" Li Shi interrupted them without hesitation.
"When I first arrived in Chengdu, I remember clearly that the court's annual field tax revenue was still 10 million shi of grain. Why is it getting lower and lower now? Last year it was only more than 3 million shi. This year's summer grain has been collected, but the field tax is still
It’s less than half of last year, what’s the reason for this? There’s obviously no disaster, so why is it so low?”
Zhang Yanshang sighed and said: "Your Majesty, there are many reasons. The key is land annexation. The number of farmers now is less than 20% of what it was when we first arrived in Chengdu. There are no farmers near Chengdu anymore. After the powerful annexed the land, they did not pay taxes.
The land annexation in the south of the Yangtze River was equally serious. The local tycoons owned a large number of slaves and maintained hundreds or even thousands of armed villagers. The local government did not dare to collect land taxes. Without the farmers, of course there would be no land taxes.