When Suo Lushen and the others saw Handan City again after more than ten years, the appearance of Handan City was completely different from the original.

It was no longer even clear that the Zhou Lifang had a square rule, the protruding edges and corners, the row walls, the moats, the several small fortresses and acropolis in the vicinity, and the bronze cannons that glowed blue-black on the city walls......

It's all very different than it was more than a decade ago.

The first time I entered the Central Plains from the northern border, and for the first time I saw the mare's milk of the real Central Plains big city, I watched the people coming and going at the towering city walls and city gates, and secretly smacked my tongue.

Together with many people from the north who had entered the Central Plains for the first time and saw the great city of the Central Plains, Suo Lushen proudly told them that this city must have come from the Mo family.

The person on Gongzizhang's side who accompanied him replied with a smile: "You are right. This is exactly what the craftsmen will help build, and it costs a lot of money, but it is worth it. At this time, Gongzi once said that there were 20,000 soldiers guarding the palace, and 100,000 divisions could not be broken. ”

Handan City is much taller than Gaoliu City in the north, after all, the Hu people will not attack the city, and Gaoliu City does not have the intensity foundation of the siege of the Central Plains at all, so there is no need to spend a lot. In addition, the population is far worse than here, and it really can't be compared.

When Ma Milk heard what these people said, she was amazed and asked: "This is built by our Mo family, isn't the city on Si even bigger than this?" It is said that Pei County, I don't know how big the city of Pei County is? ”

Solushen thought for a moment, shook his head and said, "I'm afraid it's not that big." If you really ask people to besiege Pei County, I am afraid that no matter how big the city is, it will be useless. ”

The mare's milk seemed to understand, but it didn't seem to understand, and there was some disillusionment in her heart.

I always heard the Mo family talk about the prosperity of Sishangpei County, originally imagined that it was a city bigger than Gaoliu, but it was difficult for him to imagine what it looked like, just like people who have never seen snow can't imagine what snow looks like.

Seeing Handan City today, he was already shocked, but Suo Lushen said that Pei County was not so majestic, so the mare's milk felt a little sigh.

Walking under the real Central Plains City, the sense of oppression of the giant city made Ma's Milk a little nervous, and like the rest of those who saw the Central Plains City for the first time, looking at the high city walls, they felt a little short and a little panicked.

Solushen had seen a lot of city walls and a lot of huge cities, but after a rough estimate of the cost of building this city, he had a little understanding of the saying that the promised land needed a lot of things for everyone to produce.

It was not impossible to build such a big city in the past, but it was unthinkable in the past that it could be built in a few years, and the people who built the city were not the heads of the princes, but only the sons of a doctor.

Xu Yi, who was traveling with Suo Lu Shen, saw that Suo Lu Shen looked up, and said, "This city was just built two years ago, and it took a total of five years. ”

Xu Yi thought of the Mo family's sayings about benevolence and righteousness, and the three troubles of the people, Xu was worried that Suo Lushen had any bad thoughts, and hurriedly added a few more words.

"Although the money spent is a lot, the people's lives have also improved, and Childe is really a benevolent and righteous person."

Handan was his fiefdom, so he gave his fiefdom to people, and more than 15,000 households were granted land. It will be paid off in 20 years at most, and after paying off, these fields are all farmers' private property, and the people of Handan are all shouting long live. ”

"There are more than 15,000 households, and each household divides the land and produces 100 acres, and also invests in iron tools and horses, and the annual tax paid by each household is only 1 out of 10."

"In addition, Gongzi also used his slaves as hired laborers and granted the Mo family more than 100,000 yuan a year to the iron-smelting workshop opened here."

"Coupled with the income of iron smelting every year, as well as the commercial taxes of Handan merchants, plus some loans from the Mo family, and the great repair of the city in time for the famine year, not only can the people get food, but also build the city without hurting the people's strength."

There are many practices in this, and when Suo Lushen heard this, he smiled secretly in his heart, and said in his heart that if there was no operation by the Mo family, there would be ghosts. Although the Mo family used to focus on ghosts and gods, Suo Lushen now does not believe in ghosts and gods, so when he thinks of the impossible, he thinks of ghosts.

In addition to the secret smile in my heart, there is also irony.

This Handan City was originally the fief of Gongzi Zhang, Gongzi Zhang bought the hearts of the people of Handan in order to be the Marquis of Zhao, and Handan City has always been an important fief of the Zhao family, and there are not many local nobles, so it is easy to carry out changes.

But if it is to be promoted to the whole country, it is absolutely impossible.

If you dare to promote it like this, the nobles will overthrow the rule of Gongzizhang and denounce it as tyranny.

Suo Lushen thought to himself, in the end, it was a compromise and a thin mud, and in the end, the heavy responsibility of completely killing the nobles of Shiqing had to be placed on the Mo family, and it was not possible to rely on the Ming monarch and prince after all.

A person who can be the king of the country will not care about that fief at all, even if it is a big city like Handan. The monarch wished that there was not a single big nobleman in the world, and all of them became small peasants in order to centralize power.

But those nobles who can't be kings, the fiefs and the population in the fiefs are their lifeblood and the source of their power.

However, this kind of change is still beneficial to the world after all. Solu Shen thought of some of the sayings he had heard Shi say before: people who have been in the dark do not know the beauty of light at all. The people who look forward to the light the most will always be at dawn, the east will dawn, and people will see the light, and they will understand the horror of darkness, and will think of overthrowing those things.

The current situation in Handan City, for the rest of Zhao Guo, is the dawn, a dawn that can be seen by others.

And the foundation needed for the Mohist inference about the Promised Land at this time needs to be provided by this kind of change. Solushen firmly believes that the doctrine of the promised land is the most suitable for the times after inference and reasoning, but the arrival of this era will require the reform of various countries, and when it is finally found that the reform is not complete, the people will expect a system that truly meets the level of production at that time.

He pondered a lot in his heart, but he didn't say much. Since the Mo family has opened an iron-smelting workshop in Handan, the penetration in Handan is not shallow, and I dare not say that coming here is like going home, but at least it will have enough influence.

With the reform of Gongzizhang, it is impossible for the Mo family to completely let Gongzizhang buy people's hearts, and they will inevitably act secretly and use political demands as a condition for borrowing.

Although Xu Yi did not say these additional political conditions, Suo Lushen felt that they must exist.

Suo Lushen thought to himself, this Xu Yi only said that Gongzi Zhang was called long live in Handan, but he was afraid that the Mo family should be praised in the eyes of the people of Handan.

…………

In Handan City, a building hides the depths, and a young man of seventeen or eighteen years old is dressed in white filial piety.

The young man's name is Guo Zong.

The Guo family, a wealthy family before Handan, originally made a living by smelting iron, of course, not blast furnace iron, but the kind of sponge iron forged at low temperature.

The technology of furnace iron is in the hands of the Mo family, and they don't.

There is a name and a surname, and it is naturally an aristocrat.

Guo Zong's ancestor was the uncle of King Wu of Zhou, who was sealed in Yu, and Houyu was destroyed in Jin, and his descendants took Guo as his clan.

Later, Zhao Jianzi surrounded the Jin Zhijiang, the Guo family moved to Jinyang, and the later branch moved to Handan.

Since the advent of the technology of forging sponge iron at low temperatures, several large families here in Handan have begun to cooperate and monopolize the production of ironware.

As a branch of the Jinyang Guo clan, the Handan Guo clan relied on the wealth accumulated in the iron smelting industry, and before the emergence of the Mo family, it was already faintly involved in the politics of the Zhao State.

Iron is needed for weapons and tools, which must have a lot of connections with the nobles of Zhao, which is another way for the clan to grow, from merchants to become the king of "Sufeng", and then gradually gain power.

Before the emergence of the Mo family, the Guo family accumulated huge wealth, and the family had tens of thousands of gold, and by the time of Guo Zong's father's generation, it was already the richest family in Handan City.

In addition to smelting iron, he also lent usury and did a horse business, Guo Zong's father was a guest of honor in front of many nobles, and his status was transcendent.

However, with the arrival of the Mo family in Handan ten years ago, with the series of changes in Gongzizhang, with the emergence of a new type of iron smelting method in Sishang and the technological monopoly of the Mo family, the Guo family's industry and status plummeted.

Two price reductions competed, one Gongzizhang land reform, and the Mo family came forward to repay the iron at low interest in the future, both prongedly.

Guo Zong's father felt that with his years of accumulation and ten thousand gold as the foundation, he wanted to fight with the Mo family.

But after fighting for less than half a year, the Guo family couldn't hold on, and it seemed impossible to touch the foundation of the Mo family if the ten thousand gold was smashed.

Soon after, the Mo family's iron-smelting workshop here began to offer high prices to recruit those forging craftsmen in the Guo's iron-smelting workshop, and many of them fled, and even some of them were sold into slavery.

If it was in the past, the Guo family could naturally rely on the relationship with the nobles to get these people back.

However, now that the Mo family and Gongzi Zhang are very close, these fugitive slaves have only compensated the original ransom and have nothing to do.

Soon after, there were more and more strange goods on the city of Handan, and the Mo family's industries here were in full swing, but all the handicraftsmen who competed with the goods sold by the Mo family went bankrupt.

Cotton and woolen completely ruined local linen production.

Furnace iron farming tools led to the transformation of bone and stonemasons who sharpened tools, or became hired workers in Mohist workshops.

Those big businessmen who hoarded grain have also lost all their money in the collapse of grain prices in the past few years.

However, some people are sad, and some people are happy, those handicraftsmen who do not conflict with the Mohist industry have made a fortune in recent years, and those related to the Mohist industry, such as charcoal burning, pottery, woodworking and other industries, are developing rapidly.

Guo Zong's father sent a few henchmen to Sishang, and when he came back, he said that Guo Zong's father had aged several years overnight and was bedridden.

This big man who used to be in Handan, this rich businessman who could compete with many nobles of Zhao State, and this representative figure of the local handicraft industry of Zhao State, said something to Guo Zong from the hospital bed.

"If you can't win, your family has ten thousand gold, and in the eyes of the Mo family, it's just a few things. The Mo family moved their fingers, and our family's industry would not be able to sustain it. ”

Soon after, the old man died.

The position of the suzerain of the Guo clan fell on the young Guo Zong, and the people's hearts were scattered, and they were panicked.

He, the son of the sect, inherited a family that had begun to decline.

He, the son of the sect, like his father, knew that it was impossible to rely on technology and financial resources to fight the Mo family.

He had also read some Mohist books, and at first he thought the content was very reasonable, but now he hated it: "The Mohists said that let the people benefit, if you really want to let the people benefit, you should not compete with my family." It's just a villain who claims to be benevolent and righteous. What kind of benevolence and righteousness are we talking about when we compete with the people for profit? ”