Silver Fox of the Three Kingdoms

Murder with a knife?
Zhuge Liang and Xu Shu looked at each other, very puzzled.

The tactic is often to use other people to accomplish what you want to accomplish.

But if you want to do this, you have to introduce a third-party force.

But now in Jingzhou, how can there be a third-party force that has such boldness to carry out reforms?
With this doubt, Xu Shu asked Shen Chen, "Whose knife do you want to borrow?"

"The knife of Yizhou people."

A mysterious smile appeared on Shen Chen's face.

Yizhou knife?

Zhuge Liang picked up the tea in front of him, took a sip, and asked, "Do you have a suitable candidate?"

"Have."

"Who is it?"

Zhuge Liang said: "Let's talk about reducing the army first. During the period of the King of Chu, the number of soldiers and horses increased greatly, with more than [-] people, and he became the largest prince in the south. But these soldiers are not elite soldiers, and the military spirit is not very strong. , It would be easy to reduce them, but after the reduction, how will the soldiers survive? Don’t they need a lot of land? What can Xiaoqing do?”

Shen Chen said: "Official management can only be slowed down and not rushed. The officials in Jingzhou are intricate, and most of them are descendants of aristocratic families. Therefore, these people can't move, or they can't move lightly."

In the Han Dynasty, there was the "Three Mutual Laws", and it was extremely strict. According to the regulations, up to the prefecture and state guards, down to the county magistrate, chief, prime minister, and lieutenant, none of the county's people were used.

Although it sounds good, this is a temporary solution, not a permanent solution.

The guard opened the door and greeted the outside: "Send it in."

Shen Chen explained: "Think about it, General Zuo has just acted as an agent of state affairs, and has not fully taken power yet, so how can he drastically reform the military? So now we can only do some tinkering work, and the major restructuring must wait until it is stabilized. before we can begin.”

"Okay, stop talking, I'm going to vomit."

These retrenched soldiers will become the biggest destabilizing factor.

Most of the soldiers are from northern refugees. The reason they join the army is just to make a living. They don’t have a strong sense of belonging to Liu Biao’s forces, and their morale is not very high. In addition, training time, personnel quality, leading generals, etc. As for other issues, Jingzhou's army of more than [-] troops is far from elite.

At this moment, knocking and shouting came from outside the door.

But after the Dong Zhuo Rebellion at the end of the Han Dynasty, due to the greatly weakened court prestige, few local princes obeyed it anymore.

"Lin Yidao? I didn't expect Jiaozhi to have such a strange thing."

Only Shen Chen held his chin with one hand, with a look of sadness flickering between his brows.

Therefore, Shen Chen strongly opposed it.

The three of them stopped talking.

The most typical example is that under the rule of Liu Biao in Jingzhou, Cai Mao was from Xiangyang in Nanjun. Liu Biao appointed him as the prefect of Nanjun.

What Shen Chen meant was to not move the land of those aristocratic families first, but to increase revenue and reduce expenditure, reclaim new land, disarmament can also reduce expenditure, and then use the state government's finances to support these veterans for a period of time, and wait until the Champa rice and the fertilization law are in place. After Jingzhou is fully promoted, it will be able to ensure the food and clothing of soldiers and poor people.

The aristocratic families in the south are very powerful. The several civil strife in Liu Zhang's Yizhou were the struggles with the aristocratic families.In Jiangdong, Sun Ce relied entirely on killing to subdue him. In the period of Sun Quan, he was still dominated by powerful families, and he had to kill many people to maintain his rule in his later years.

Shen Chen also said: "Under the circumstances that the population, land, and officials cannot be moved lightly, there are only three ways we can do it. First, eliminate the old and weak in the army and reduce the number of soldiers. Second, appease the refugees and reclaim new land. Three, appease the more barbarians in Jingnan Mountain, and ease the dispute between Han and Barbarians."

Since the end of the Han Dynasty, the weather has changed severely. Affected by the small glaciers, it is sometimes cold and sometimes hot, sometimes floods and sometimes droughts. The people do not have much land in their hands. Once extreme weather occurs, resulting in reduced or no production in the fields, it will cause very serious consequences. .

Because the greed of the aristocratic family is continuous, the more land you reclaim and the more people you absorb, they will always have a way to turn these land populations into hidden households and hidden properties of the aristocrats.

At this moment, knocking on the door and shouting, it was obvious that the guards were reporting something, so Shen Chen said, "What's the matter?"

Especially Cai Mao, Kuai Yue, Huang Zu, Fu Qun, Kuai Jun, and Kuai Qi.

And apart from the people who are struggling on the poverty line of life and death, the most important thing is military reform and the reduction of soldiers.

"Boom, boom, report!"

"That can't be helped."

"It doesn't matter when you come, it needs a suitable time."

However, this kind of growth is like a short-term fattening of a fat man. It is puffiness. Without exercise, fat cannot be turned into muscle.

It's just that Shen Chen also knows that even though Liu Bei has initially grasped Jingzhou, the aristocratic families in Jingzhou are not as powerful as those in Henan and Hebei.

Zhuge Liang narrowed his eyes, lost in thought.

"Young master."

Xu Shu stretched out his hand to stop it.

Therefore, now that Liu Bei is in charge of Jingzhou, in order to train the puffy army left over from Liu Biao's period into a muscular army, it is necessary to reduce the old and weak again, keep the strong and strong, and train them to become elite soldiers.

Xu Shu buried his head in his meal.

Shen Chen shrugged, and said again: "Moreover, it's not only human feces and urine, but also chicken, duck, pig, cattle, sheep, and horse feces. The method of fertilizing the soil with feces exists in Spring and Autumn, and the fertilization method I invented is like fertilizing the soil." Grain and water are the same as brewing wine, which greatly improves the efficiency of manure use, which is how I said to open up new fields.”

Limited by the small number of people who pay taxes, Liu Biao's rule seems to have a population of 700 million, but in fact the fiscal revenue is not much, and it is impossible to support an army.

Shen Chen pondered and said: "This is indeed a big problem. If the soldiers' livelihoods are not resolved, and they are sent back to their hometowns like this, it will inevitably lead to a lot of civil strife. Therefore, we must treat it with caution. The situation in the army has not yet been counted. Let's temporarily In this way, let the state government calculate the land property, soldiers, and household registration of the state government before making detailed plans."

But if you don't do this, then relying on Champa rice and retting method alone is actually a drop in the bucket. It can only temporarily alleviate the internal conflicts in Jingzhou, but cannot solve the internal conflicts in Jingzhou.

Nearly [-] soldiers have retired and returned to their hometowns. If there is no land to appease these soldiers, these soldiers will become a great hidden danger. Once there is a commotion, the entire Nanyang may fall into a very poor security environment.

As I said before, there were many hermits who did not pay taxes in the late Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms. In addition to the hermits of aristocratic families, there were also mountain people who fled into the mountains like "Peach Blossom Spring".

It's just that there is great resistance to land reform. As a member of the aristocratic family, if he does this, he will belong to the rebellious class. Not only will his relatives and friends around him put pressure on him, but even the entire Jingzhou gentry cannot tolerate him.

It can't be said that it is a mob, but it can only be regarded as the weaker second-line army. It is okay to fight ordinary thieves, bandits, and remnants of the Yellow Turbans.

Zhuge Liang said: "We must come up with a practical plan, and implement it while making statistics."

"Ah."

Therefore, if we want to solve the problem fundamentally, we still have to slaughter fat sheep and eat big households.

Zhuge Liangliang nodded and said, "And then?"

Shen Chen said: "We can start from three aspects, one is to increase the production of the fields held by the existing government and the people, the other is to reclaim new fields, and the third is to ensure the survival of these soldiers before the new fields and food production increase. , we have to continue to support them for a period of time after they leave the army and return home.”

Although it is easy to say, Shen Chen also knows that it is difficult to agree with doing many things.

The objective factor for reaching this level is that Shen Chen proposed the farmland system, which made Liu Biao's treasury extremely rich, and he could harvest 3000 to [-] million shi of grain from Nanyang farmland every year, so that he could recruit more soldiers.

Who can resist having a mouth full of excrement and feces while eating.

Shen Chen said: "The increase in production is mainly rice in the south. We found a new type of rice in Jiaozhi called Linyi rice or Zhancheng rice. It has a short production cycle, is extremely drought-tolerant and grows indiscriminately. In the south, rice is double-cropped every year, and the yield per mu has greatly increased.”

Shen Chen responded.

"Ah."

Zhuge Liang thought for a while, and nodded in agreement.

The rest of Huang She, Xiang Lang, Xi Zhen, Zhang Cun, and later Kuai Jun, Kuai Qi, and Fu Qun in the Cao Wei period also violated the Three Mutual Laws.

Later, due to the war in the north, a large number of refugees moved to the south, and the population of Jingzhou was supplemented. The proportion of hermits, mountain people, hooligans, and non-tax-paying population under Liu Biao’s rule was greatly reduced, and the tax-paying population was greatly increased. manpower.

Zhuge Liang thought for a while and said, "In this case, let's analyze which places can be moved and which places cannot."

"Send it up."

"First of all, the issue of land and hidden households cannot be moved."

Xu Shu said: "But what about the fertility of the soil? The land in the south is not considered fertile, and the fertility of the soil will be exhausted once a year is ripe. If it is double-cropping, can it really increase the yield?"

Liu Biao's situation will be slightly better, because he chose to integrate into the powerful family and marry Cai's daughter, so as to rule Jingzhou together with the powerful forces of the family represented by Cai Mao and Kuai Yue.

For example, even though the land reform has been carried out in later generations, everyone has land in their hands, and after a few years of natural disasters, I don’t know how many people still starved to death.

"only."

Shen Chen said: "These are the roots of the great family. If we touch these two things, the great family will fight us desperately."

"Tinkering work?"

None of the three spoke.

The guard outside said: "The owner said the dishes are ready."

The owner and a waiter walked in with a flattering smile and put the dishes in their hands on the table.

Under such circumstances, Jingzhou officialdom has many descendants of aristocratic families serving as officials. Even if outsiders are officials in Jingzhou, they will often collude with these aristocratic families to form an intricate network of interests.

Others are county magistrates in this county, but a few of them are prefects in this county. Fu Qun is even more exaggerated. He is from Xiangyang, Jingzhou, and Cao Cao asked him to be the governor of Jingzhou. , become a dead letter.

It is for this reason that Zhuge Liang wants to carry out drastic reforms and redistribute the land in preparation for the upcoming plan to strengthen the state and enrich the people.

Because of this, in order to appease Sun Quan, Cao Cao asked him to actively hold back Liu Biao and Liu Bei's forces, and gave him the position of Yangzhou Mu, which was violating the Three Mutual Law and trying his best to win him over.

However, if this is done, the entire Jingzhou now has nearly 20 people, and it is estimated that more than half will be abolished.

In addition, Shen Chen helped Liu Biao defend Nanyang, and suggested that he farm the fields. In this way, he owned the granary of Nanyang Basin, and the northern refugees who moved south were fully utilized, so their strength grew day by day.

Zhuge Liang said: "How to increase production and how to cultivate new fields."

Most of these lands are now occupied by aristocratic families. The land of ordinary self-cultivating farmers and farmers is often in the middle or even lower fields. Barely solve food and clothing.

"Then there is the administration of officials."

Xu Shu said with a look of disgust: "You're right, it's feces and urine again, which makes me lose my appetite to eat."

All three of them brought guards, and their business was not good, so there were no other guests on the second floor.

After they left, the door was closed again. Xu Shu began to move his chopsticks, and said while eating, "When will the person you are looking for come?"

Once they interrupted, the topic couldn't continue.

Shen Chen ordered the guards to guard the stairs, and no one was allowed to approach and eavesdrop on the secrets.

"No matter how you count, there will definitely be more people than fields, and there will be not enough food to eat. Those soldiers who have been laid off may go out to plunder, and turmoil will break out."

Another point is that even the symptoms are not completely cured.

Many people say that the ancient casualty rate will collapse if it exceeds 10%. Although it is not that exaggerated, the troops under Liu Biao's command are basically like this.

For example, the elite soldiers under Cao Cao, Shen Chen, Liu Bei, Sun Quan and others have a very high fighting will. Even if the casualty rate exceeds 30%, as long as there is no large-scale disadvantage in the frontal battlefield, they can often continue to fight and fight to the death.

Cultivating land naturally does not mean that you can cultivate a field immediately after you open up a field, but you need land with fertile soil.

If the fundamental problem cannot be solved and a large amount of land is redistributed, the people will become more and more impoverished, and eventually they will not be able to survive.

We must know that when Liu Biao had the most troops, there were 24 troops, and he was known as a million soldiers.

But the subjective factors are the surge in Jingzhou's population and Liu Biao's failure to lose the Nanyang Basin.

There is also Huang Zu who is said to have been born in the Huang family of Anlu in Jiangxia, but was appointed as the prefect of Jiangxia.

"Then tell me in detail."

Shen Chen said with a smile: "It can cultivate soil fertility. Champa rice only takes three to four months to mature, while our southern rice takes five months. After a year, at least three to four months belong to the slack period. At this time Use the method of retting to accumulate excrement and urine for a year for fermentation, and water it in the fields during the slack season to warm and nourish the land and increase its fertility."

Therefore, mobilizing the population, land, and government officials is to make enemies of the entire family in Jingzhou. Facing this powerful force, they really have to think twice before acting recklessly.

Now that Liu Bei is the lord of Jingzhou, if he takes the Jingzhou family immediately, the situation will become more intense than that of Sun Ce and Liu Zhang, and it may cause more serious civil strife. Speaking of it, the time is not yet ripe, and the power of the aristocratic family is too strong to be their enemy.

Therefore, Shen Chen is just a paper-paper maker, first repairing Jingzhou's internal affairs, and then doing it when the time is right in the future.

Shen Chen looked towards the west.

In Yizhou, there is a ruthless person.

After the south is pacified in the future, Zhuge Liang will go to Yizhou to do internal affairs. Let him come to Jingzhou, and this problem may be solved.