Chapter 975 Suspension of War
"When the time comes, this dynasty will be revived just like the Emperor Shizu. There will be many major events to be busy with. Kong Ming will definitely work more hard at that time. However, this is also a good opportunity to leave a name in history. Kong Ming must seize it."
There are mainly two stages that can leave a name in history, one is the troubled times, and the other is the governance. Such as the conflict between Chu and Han, the struggle for hegemony of the Three Kingdoms, the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, and the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, etc., all belong to troubled times, while the founding and resurgence of the past dynasties belong to the era of governance. Along with the chaos and governance, a large number of capable ministers and generals will naturally shine in the annals of history.
Zhuge Liang said excitedly: "General, don't worry, Liang will definitely work hard for his work!"
"Kong Ming doesn't have to work too hard. If you are alive, you can expect big things. If you work too hard, how can you do big things?"
Zhuge Liang can be regarded as a representative of the model workers during the Three Kingdoms period. Probably because Ma Di's street pavilion was not useful, Zhuge Liang was on high alert from then on. He did not dare to trust others in anything, so he had to do everything himself. Later, Wu Zhang died. This is not unreasonable. He was overworked. Naturally, he would die early, and Liu Ye didn't want Zhuge Liang to die too early.
Ma Jun couldn't put it down after getting the Profit and Loss Repeating Crossbow. Under Liu Ye's words, strange and wonderful ideas emerged in his mind. He almost didn't think about it, and tirelessly launched the research and development of the Profit and Loss Repeating Crossbow. and improvements, it took more than two months to finally complete the improvement of Zhuge Liannu, and improved the crossbow machine into a detachable type. Each crossbow machine has ten crossbow arrows. After firing, it is immediately disassembled and replaced with The new ones continue to fire, so that there is no need to laboriously reload, which greatly improves the firing efficiency of the Profit and Loss Repeating Crossbow.
Ma Jun immediately reported it to Liu Ye happily, and Liu Ye immediately gave Ma Jun a salary increase of thousands of stones and ordered mass production of the profit-and-loss Liannu. Because the crossbow arrows of the Shenglian Crossbow were also specially made and could not be confused with different bows and arrows, all the military blacksmiths and even some civilian blacksmiths were temporarily recruited by the court to make Zhuge Repeated Crossbows and crossbow arrows.
The production of Wooden Ox and Liuma and Zhuge Liannu were in full swing. At the same time, Liu Ye ordered the implementation of the liquidation system. The liquidation system became popular in the Tang and Song dynasties hundreds of years later. Because it depends on productivity, farmers depend on the weather for food. Whether it is dry or wet determines the grain harvest that year. If it is not good, they may not be able to eat.
But sometimes the years are very good and farmers get a bumper harvest. Logically speaking, they can sell the grain and buy more land. But some things are not that simple. As the saying goes, demand affects price. If there is more grain, demand will naturally decrease, and the price will drop. This is the so-called low price of grain, which hurts farmers and cannot be sold.
The so-called liquidation system is to set up government granaries specifically. When farmers have a good harvest, the grain and grass from farmers will be purchased at a higher price and stored for use. In case of a disaster year, the farmers really can't get over this hurdle, and then sell it to the farmers at a lower price. This can alleviate the disaster, which is a system in ancient society.
The reason why Liu Ye created this system was not only to establish a long-term system to stabilize his rule and benefit farmers, but also to collect a large amount of grain and grass for military use. Because the army is about to be used against Cao Cao, soldiers and horses from all over the country will be mobilized by then. The food and grass that will be eaten in a day will be calculated in tens of thousands of dan, which is simply an astronomical figure.
It is definitely not enough to just use the grain and grass stored by the government. In fact, when the grain and grass were not enough in the past dynasties, they had to collect it from the people. It is said to be collecting, but in fact it is similar to Ming Dynasty robbery. You must have read the poem "Three Officials and Three Parts" by the poet Du Fu. Naturally, we also understand the chaos during the Anshi Rebellion.
Liu Ye, on the other hand, was trying to take precautions and nip problems in the bud. Instead of waiting until the war breaks out to steal food from farmers, why not buy in large quantities from the beginning and gain a good reputation?
After the liquidation system was implemented, little effect was achieved. After all, the people did not understand the government's policies, so they did not dare to invest in it easily. However, under Liu Ye's hint, many aristocratic families in various states and counties soon rushed to donate grain. Sold to Hengcang, and seeing that the wealthy families were doing this, these ordinary people who had no independent opinions naturally followed suit one by one, so they received a large part of the food and grass from Hengcang.
However, it was not until the end of summer and early autumn that the opening of positions really ushered in a big outbreak. This year's business has been good, coupled with Liu Ye's 15-tax-one policy, so in addition to leaving enough food for the whole family, farmers have He sold the grain to Pingcang and got tens of millions of grain and grass in a short time. It can be said that the army is well equipped with food.
In addition to implementing the liquidation system, Liu Ye also ordered the construction of Xiangxu across the country. The so-called Xiangxu was the name of a school in the Zhou Dynasty, and Xu was the name of a school in the Shang Dynasty. Therefore, later generations would refer to the school as Xiangxu. Xiangxu has been mentioned many times in "Three Kingdoms".
In any era, the most important productivity is talent. Even technology is essentially driven by human beings' continuous learning and research. Education is the most important way to cultivate talents. Liu Ye did not require various places to establish universities. Instead, he established primary schools in various places and hired teachers. Their tasks were not multi-faceted. They mainly taught books such as The Thousand-Character Classic and The Analects of Confucius. It is to make children literate.
At this stage, with the national strength of the Han Dynasty, it is difficult to vigorously build schools. Liu Ye plans to solve the illiteracy problem in most of the thirteen states within ten years and promote compulsory education within twenty years. As long as the culture is prosperous, a A great kingdom will be born.
Revolution is from the bottom up, and although it is effective, it is extremely destructive; while reform is from the top down, and although the progress is slower, it is not so destructive.
However, Liu Ye's introduction of these policies inevitably encountered resistance from the gentry in various places. The first point is the liquidation system. Many aristocratic families built Wubao to protect farmers. These farmers became the invisible household registration of the country. They did not pay taxes to the court and were not recorded in the register.
Now that the liquidation system has been introduced, the interests of farmers have been protected. Many farmers under the protection of wealthy families are ready to leave.
If the impact of the liquidation system on the aristocratic families is still small, then the second point is that it has a huge impact on the aristocratic families!
Why can these aristocratic families be passed down from generation to generation for dozens of generations without declining for thousands of years? The root cause is that they have a monopoly on culture, so through the rise and fall of dynasties, they can join the world to assist the emperor and make contributions.