Chapter 258 Casting a plough as a sword to fight in all directions

In any era, the income from farming is, after all, the lowest. For example, in this era, even if the wind and rain are smooth, in a good harvest year, the output of one acre of land is about 150 yuan, and the annual income of 100 acres of land is only 15,000 yuan, excluding taxes, seeds and labor costs, the net profit is only 35,000 yuan.

Chen Ying thought for a while and added: "There are more people who go to work, and it is difficult to recruit long-term and short-term workers, even if they can be recruited, the commission will definitely be greatly increased, so that the income from farming will be much thinner, I believe that there will be many landlords who lose interest in farming and sell their fields to set up factories, so that there will be more people who have land to plant?" ”

The issue of land annexation has plagued China for thousands of years. Countless people have spent their entire lives without finding a fundamental solution.

At the same time, the issue of land annexation has also become the fate of China. As soon as the cultivated land exceeds the maximum population that the land can bear, troubled times will come.

In the final analysis, it is still a matter of the size of the cake, the current cake is too small, even if it is not enough for one person to stuff the teeth, but if it is made ten times bigger, a hundred times, one person will be full in one bite, and there is no need to grab it so fiercely! ”

However, the income of the workman is not only high, it is also not affected by the weather.

Li Jiancheng stood on the city gate tower, looked at the brightly lit Qinglin and sighed: "If only every city in the world could do this." ”

Wei Ting shook his head and said, "No, if half of the cities can do this, they will all be glorious and prosperous for Yuanmai strong men." ”

Chen Ying showed a strange smile and said, "Shengshi? Are you rare? ”

Li Jiancheng sighed and said, "But who doesn't want to live in a prosperous world? But as a monarch of a country, who doesn't want to be able to create a prosperous world? ”

"Actually, if you want to be prosperous, it's not difficult at all!" Chen Ying pointed to the empty night sky around him and said: "At that time, the Sui Dynasty had more than 9.8 million households, and if you count the hidden households and fugitive households, the population was no less than 60 million. Now after more than ten years of war, people have been killed, and now the population of Guanzhong is less than a quarter of what it used to be, and if it is exempt from taxes for a few years, it will not be long before the prosperity will come. ”

Chen Ying's words were a bit absurd, but they frightened Li Jiancheng. Li Jiancheng and Wei Ting glanced at each other, and their temples jumped suddenly. Wei Ting shouted: "What nonsense are you talking about? Each prosperous era does not know how many people have to die, how much effort to create, looking at thousands of years of history, there are only a handful of times that can be called prosperous......"

Chen Ying retorted: "Every dynasty is prosperous for a long time after the founding of the country, and this thing is not uncommon at all!" ”

Even if Chen Ying's words pierced a window paper, Li Jiancheng's heart suddenly brightened. He looked at the dark night sky, and his eyes seemed to penetrate time and see the depths of history.

Every prosperous era is built on the accumulated white bones after the collapse of the previous dynasty, and there is no great rule without great chaos, and it has been like this since ancient times. However, the sages will tell him that it was a certain monarch who was brilliant and brilliant and created this prosperous era......

Li Jiancheng asked: "You say, how did the prosperous era come about?" ”

Chen Ying asked rhetorically: "Before I answer you, please tell me first, how did the previous dynasty collapse?" ”

Wei Ting hurriedly said, "Do you need to talk about this?" Naturally, it is a faint monarch who is extravagant and promiscuous, and builds a large number of buildings, which makes the heavens angry and resentful, and the people are not able to make a living, and finally the people's resentment boils......"

"Yang Guang is what you call the faint king, right? Excessive ...... of prostitution" Chen Ying interrupted Wei Ting's words and said: "Yang Guang's first and fourth concubines, three sons and two daughters, a total of five children, what kind of absurdity and prostitution, this is too false, right?" Wei joined the army, if my memory is correct, you should have thirteen sons and five daughters! ”

Wei Ting was speechless.

Chen Ying pointed at Li Jiancheng and said, "His Royal Highness the Prince, if you say something disrespectful, you also have six sons and five daughters under your knees......

Li Jiancheng was silent.

"If Yang Guang is desolate and lewd, how many people in the Manchu Dynasty are not desolate and lewd?" Chen Ying smiled bitterly and said: "It's hard to say whether it's true or false, but there is one thing in common, that is, the people are not living." Yes, the people's misery is the prelude to the demise of every dynasty. ”

Li Jiancheng was shocked in his heart! If the people's livelihood is the prelude to the demise of every dynasty, then the Tang Dynasty ...... During the Hebei Rebellion, almost more than half of the people in Hebei followed Liu Shishan to rebel, and now Jianghuai is the same, if the people can survive, they will be kicked in the head by a donkey, and they will follow the rebellion!

Chen Ying continued: "Why are the people not making a living? Historians will without exception point the finger at the Son of Heaven, thinking that the Son of Heaven is immoral, so it will make the people unhappy, how to lose morality, Wei Senjun has just listed, absurdity, construction and construction, reuse of cool officials, cronyism, emphasis on villains and far virtuous ministers...... There are too many to count. ”

Li Jiancheng asked in surprise, "Isn't it right?" ”

"The ghost knows if it's true or not, can people who read history still wake up the dead emperor from the coffin and interrogate them one by one? But there is one thing they didn't write, that is, the government is exploiting and land is annexed...... That's right, land annexation, this is the real reason why the people are not living well. Chen Ying walked in from the city gate tower towards the city gate tower.

Li Jiancheng and Wei Ting also followed Chen Ying in.

Chen Ying took the pen and ink on the desk, drew a circle on the paper, and said, "This big pie represents the land. ”

Then the pen turned and cut it in half, "At the beginning, there were only two families who shared this land, and it can be seen that they can't cultivate it at all, and it is no problem to plough it in three years, and it is easier to pay taxes." ”

After another painting, the pie became four parts, "but they will eventually have children, and their children will eventually start a family, since they have a family and a business, they must have a piece of land, I will divide it according to their two children, this pie is divided into four parts, a little smaller, but there is still a surplus for them." ”

After a few more paintings, the flatbread became more than a dozen pieces, and "in another twenty years, the children of these four families will also grow up, and they will divide the land left by their ancestors again...... See, now the land is just enough, everyone has a piece, there will be no waste, and the output of the land is enough for them to live a subsistence life after paying taxes, so this era is called the prosperous era. Yes, a country that has come from troubled times, as long as there is no big mess, no matter how incompetent the monarch is, after three or four generations of efforts, it can usher in a prosperous era. ”

Li Jiancheng silently calculated in his heart, just as Chen Ying said. The Western Han Dynasty was built on the ruins of the Great Qin, and during the founding of the country, Liu Bang couldn't even find five white horse-drawn carriages, but after three generations, it was precisely the "rule of Wenjing" in history. This is the case in the Western Han Dynasty, and the same is true in the Eastern Han Dynasty, fifty or sixty years are all prosperous times, even if the Three Kingdoms period, the princes compete for hegemony, after the world is divided into three parts, Wei, Shu Han, Eastern Wu, the three kingdoms have entered the prosperous era.

Chen Ying continued: "One of the disadvantages of the prosperous era is that the products are abundant, the country is safe, and the people can reproduce with confidence, so the population is growing rapidly. But the population needs land to support it, and a country has limited land, and the limited population supports the infinitely growing population, and everyone knows what will happen. Therefore, when the number of people exceeds the limit of what the land can hold, the prosperous era will become a thing of the past, and the chaotic times will follow. More and more people are fighting openly and secretly for less and less land, and it is impossible to think about it, and if there are a few large-scale natural disasters or wars at this time, it can be said that the country is dead. ”

Hearing this, Li Jiancheng's face became a little unnatural. The family gate valve of the Tang Dynasty is now frantically annexing land, and he finally understands why Chen Ying wants to prosper industry and commerce and open a factory. This is the only way to completely eliminate the harm caused by land annexation.

The key is that the clan gate valve cannot be eliminated.

Chen Ying continued: "This is still the most ideal state, in fact, this state is impossible to happen. Land cannot be divided indefinitely until it can no longer support so many people. The rich would buy real estate on a large scale, and those who lost their land would either become serfs or be displaced, and the more land was annexed the more they went. For example, Wei joined the army, and the fields under the name of Jingzhao Wei were as many as tens of thousands. ”

Wei Ting's cold sweat flowed down instantly. He said hesitantly: "His Royal Highness the Prince, the minister has become the master of the Wei family!" ”

Li Jiancheng patted Wei Ting's shoulder and said, "Yi Zhi, don't be nervous, this palace understands ......"

Chen Ying was still there and said to himself: "In the entire Guanzhong, the fields are only more than 300,000 tilts, but now the Wei family has accounted for tens of thousands of tilts, and even the Hou Mo Chen family also has nearly 3,000 hectares of fertile land, which could have supported dozens of people, hundreds of thousands of people, and now it is all used to support your family and surname, and the most terrible thing is that these clan lords, these privileged classes do not have to pay taxes." The country can't run without taxes, officials can't skip meals, the small officials in the yamen, the three classes of officials also have to eat, hundreds of thousands of soldiers in the Tang Dynasty also have to eat, and the court has no money, what should I do? ”

Li Jiancheng sighed secretly.

When the imperial court had no money, it had to collect taxes from the peasants. Their land became scarcer, their taxes became heavier and heavier, and eventually, they lost their land, which was either abandoned or annexed by the clans, and in either case, the state lost this tax forever.

With the annexation of land, the country's tax sources are drying up and its finances are struggling to make ends meet, but there is nothing left to do, and in the long run, the country is doomed. The collapse of the empire will always be accompanied by a war of bloodshed, and the war will inevitably swallow the lives of thousands of people, and everyone will kill and kill and kill and kill until there are thousands of miles of people, until the population is reduced to the point where the land can withstand and even a large amount of wasteland, and the war is over.

At this time, Li Jiancheng finally came to his senses.

Everything is understood.

The so-called prosperous era is just a period when the number of people and the bearing capacity of the land are balanced, and it has nothing to do with whether the king is virtuous or not. As long as the population does not grow faster than the limits of the land's capacity, even a pig can create a prosperous dynasty.

Conversely, once the population exceeds the limit of the land's bearing capacity, and the limited land can no longer support so many people, there will be a man-made mass extinction, forcibly reducing the population to a relatively low level, which is equivalent to clearing the system and starting over. For thousands of years, the whole world has been repeating this process, the difference is that we can always rule after the chaos, and in some places, the chaos is followed by endless chaos, which lasts for thousands of years.

Li Jiancheng carefully recalled the history books he had read, or took a pen to list the growth of household registration and the increase and decrease of taxes in various dynasties according to the different time periods of the founding of the country, the prosperity and the demise, and then compared them carefully, the more he compared, the more shocked he became, his hands kept trembling, and he couldn't write it down. Finally, his voice trembled: "What a spell! ”

Chen Ying sighed and said: "This is the curse of our Chinese nation, our Chinese nation has been circling in this circle,

The prosperous era is as simple as that, kill eighty percent of the population, leave two percent to multiply, and live three or four generations, it will be another prosperous era! ”

Li Jiancheng said in a gaffe: "No, this spell can be broken!" The root of the problem is the land! If we can increase crop yields and feed more people with less land; If we can make the rich pay the same taxes as the poor, or even make the rich pay more taxes; Or ......"

Li Jiancheng gritted his teeth and roared with all his might: "If we can continue to open up the territory, let the land grow with the growth of the population, and ensure that the cultivators have their fields, and every household has surplus grain and meat to eat, then this curse will be invalid, and the damned end times will never come!" ”

For a while, there was a hint of relief in Chen Ying's eyes.

In fact, Chen Ying was very worried that after Li Jiancheng ascended to the throne, the generous and generous Li Jiancheng would not rest on his laurels and be satisfied with the territory of the Tang Dynasty, instead of expanding all the time as in history.

Chen Yingdao: "To break this curse, as His Royal Highness the Crown Prince said, it can be divided into three steps, first of all, internally, we must encourage the construction of workshops and encourage the development of industry and commerce. At the same time, efforts should be made to improve scientific planting and increase the yield per mu, so that the least amount of land can feed the most people. In the end, that is, never let the horse go to Nanshan, and the sword soldiers should be put into storage. We will hold aloft the plough as a sword and fight in all directions! ”

Li Jiancheng also wanted to ask Chen Ying to give him advice.

Chen Ying smiled and said, "Your Highness, why don't you let these clans and gate lords take the people to Andong or Tuntian in the Western Regions?" ”

If this model can be promoted, it will be the COFCO Group of later generations, full of enclosures in the world. Some of the food produced is sold locally, and some is shipped back to the country. In particular, the Andong Prefecture can be transported down the river and directly into the sea, and transported from the waterway to Guanzhong, which not only saves costs, but also alleviates the food crisis in Guanzhong.

Li Jiancheng groaned: "Is this feasible? ”

Chen Ying smiled and said: "The minister is willing to set an example, so let's do it, the Anton Protectorate has a large amount of wasteland, His Royal Highness can sell the land of Anton Xinna to the minister, the minister is not greedy, the minister is willing to take out a million yuan, and the minister is willing to go to Anton Tuntian!" ”

Li Jiancheng was instantly moved.

Most of Andong is wasteland, and there are no people in sight for a hundred miles. If it is sold to Chen Ying, it must not be paid!