Overlord!

Chapter 349 Kaiyuan Foundation

What Zhang Zhao said, that officials colluded with the powerful and the people were in dire straits, was actually what Sun Ce had expected.

The state has conducted a thorough investigation of the land registration, and there must be officials involved in it.

But all this cannot be ignored.

Nowadays, when the country is at peace, population statistics and land statistics are the top priorities of the Song Dynasty, even more than the expansion of external territories.

The tax collection in October this year is the key to replenishing the imperial treasury.

The three ministers definitely have great righteousness in this regard. They are responsible for finance and taxation.

So after Zhang Zhao finished speaking, Bu Zhao asked confidently: "Then what should our three envoys do according to the prime minister's wishes? Shouldn't the farmland be checked? Or should the land registration and household registration not be sorted out?"

Zhang Zhao immediately replied: "We must investigate, but corrupt officials must also be eliminated!"

There is not much point in arguing. Both of them are prime ministers, and they have their own opinions and cannot give in at all.

If Li Yan, the local governor, had military power, he would be able to wipe out the rebellion with 5,000 county soldiers.

Moreover, the world gradually became peaceful, the fighting gradually subsided, the consumption of chariots and disciples was greatly reduced, and Jiankang's finances finally showed a slight surplus.

It's just that the boundaries between the civil and military officials of the Song Dynasty are becoming clearer and clearer, and the probability of such prefects leading troops is becoming less and less.

Of course, establishing a capital in the southeast also has the advantage of establishing a capital in the southeast, that is, it has strong control over wealth and can collect a steady stream of taxes.

If this situation can be maintained for three years, then the imperial court can make up its mind to completely clean up the corrupt situation in Liangzhou.

It is undoubtedly a very good start.

But thankfully, not too much.

Therefore, the cultivated land area will increase rapidly in the future.

Even though Sun Ce was only in his first year after the founding of the country, it had actually been two years since the world had settled down.

Hebei had been pacified the year before last. If it hadn't been for Cao Cao's chaos last year, the four sides would have been peaceful now.

However, the population in these remote areas will not be too large, and the difference may only be a few million.

Jiankang is located in the south of the Yangtze River, but that does not mean that his scope of influence ends in the south of the Yangtze River.

After the Great Rebellion, the population dropped sharply, and a large amount of fertile farmland in the Central Plains was abandoned. As long as the people worked diligently, the vision of land to the tiller could be easily realized.

Sun Ce took the opportunity to summon the civil and military forces, just to take this opportunity to ask the ministers about household registration and land registration.

There will definitely be more wealth among the people!

What's more important is that most of these cultivated and fertile fields are near Jiankang.

This is why Sun Ce doesn't care much about the rebellion in Bajun.

But a rebellion in Bajun was not enough to attract such attention from the court.

According to the ideal farming model of one man and five people cultivating a hundred acres of land, there is even a surplus of farmland in the Central Plains!

There are hundreds of millions of acres more fertile farmland.

The rebellion of tens of thousands of southern barbarians was not enough to shake the rule of the Song Dynasty.

In other words, the population of the Song Dynasty was set at more than four million households, which was about one million households more than at the beginning of the Zhenguan period.

This data is not final, and the population of Liangzhou, Bingzhou and other places has not been clearly counted. As well as some remote areas in Youzhou and Yizhou, it is difficult to verify. Along the Jiaozhou area, the Song Dynasty could only count the population near each city.

They also started checking household registration and land registration long before the Yuan Dynasty was changed.

Jiankang Taicang, which has been empty for many years, is finally filling up due to this year's bumper harvest.

Hearing this, Sun Ce's calm face finally showed a smile.

This is the foundation of prosperity.

Since the first year of Zhongping, hundreds of thousands of Qiang and Hu people started a rebellion, and Liangzhou has ignored the imperial decree for more than 20 years.

This is not the Hu Feng society described in the poem "The crescent moon rises above the city, and the moon rises above the city to shine on Liangzhou. There are hundreds of thousands of homes in Liangzhou's seven miles, and the barbarians are half-capable of playing the pipa."

Especially the Jingxiang line, which has been stable and prosperous for nearly five years. Once taxes are collected this year, a large amount of money, grain, and grain will be transported downstream by water to Jiankang.

So Sun Ce spoke up, interrupted the two of them, and said: "Then, as the prime minister said, while suppressing the rebellion, at the same time purging corrupt officials. Every county in the world is conducting a thorough investigation of farm registration and hidden households. Why is there a rebellion in Ba County? Get to the bottom of it with local officials.”

After discussing the deployment, Sun Ce asked: "Prime Minister, it's already November, and every county in the world will be involved in the plan. Please tell me, what is the statistical situation of these states and counties?"

In fact, he affected a circular area, including the three most prosperous Jiangnan counties, the Lianghuai Plain, and the fertile land of Jingxiang.

The Song Dynasty established its capital in the south of the Yangtze River and spread its power to the southeast. It can be said that the control over the northwest is naturally weak. If Liangzhou is ignored, let alone the Western Regions, even Liangzhou will no longer be owned by the Central Plains in the future.

With Sun Ce's order, all the ministers had no choice but to comply.

What's more important is that this tax collection will greatly improve Jiankang's treasury.

After Sun Ce asked, Bu Zhao immediately replied: "Your Majesty, at this age, the three envoys have registered more than 4.3 million households, totaling more than 23.65 million people. There are five land registrations. There are more than 173 million acres, of which more than 120 million acres are farmland, mostly in the Jiangdong and Lianghuai areas."

Since the land system was not established, powerful, wealthy households and even ordinary people's families had more acres of land.

Hu Chen in Liangzhou is already very serious.

After the founding of the Jin Dynasty, it took two or three years to complete the inventory of hidden households. The efficiency of the current three secretaries should not be much different.

More than 23 million people, this number is not too small, enough to support the Song Dynasty to form an army of more than 200,000, 100,000 to garrison in the local area, and 100,000 to expand the territory.

Instead, the hustle and bustle of the barbarians and the stench of the barbarians permeated the entire land of Liangzhou.

"At the same time, order Lu Meng to lead an army of 10,000 men and station in Bazhong to completely wipe out the rebellion!"

A ship can transport 1,500 shi of grain, and with a hundred white sails, it can transport 150,000 shi of grain and grass to Jiankang City.

This efficiency is much higher than in the north.

As a result, Jiankang's treasury and market quickly became wealthy, and its population also increased. Jiankang's population growth rate was even among the best in the world.

Not only the major aristocratic families, but also wealthy merchants, craftsmen, scholars, poor families, and ordinary people's families also moved here. Jiankang's population, even if not counting the Forbidden Army, is close to 200,000.

A city with 200,000 people would pay more than 100,000 yuan in commercial tax, municipal shipping tax, household tax, land tax, etc. on average a month.

The benefit of Jingzhou's wealth is that to quell the barbarian rebellion this time, there is no need to transport grain from Jiankang. All that is required is to mobilize Jingzhou's wealth and transport it through the Yi Dao.

Bu Zhao was also very proud and said: "Today, Jiankang's treasury is getting richer and richer. Now the money in Taicang has reached more than six million yuan, which is the remaining money after the soldiers of the army and the officials of various states and counties have paid their salaries. Granary It is enough to last an army for ten years."

Sun Ce nodded. The biggest advantage of not establishing the land system is that it greatly liberates agricultural productivity.

Basically, after the Song and Ming Dynasties, it was not very difficult to provide food and fodder for the army.

The hard part is how to solve financial problems.

Of course, before the Song and Ming Dynasties, financial issues were not tense.

But there is no right to be nervous. The prerequisite for financial difficulties must be stable finance and currency.

There is still a financial balance of 6 million yuan in the treasury. As long as there is no more war involving 100,000 people, it will be enough to solve most of the world's troubles.

As long as the country maintains peace and tranquility for three years, the treasury will accumulate tens of millions of wealth, at least it will look like the rule of Wenjing. The country will have abundant wealth and Taicang will have abundant savings.

Therefore, Sun Ce did not want the war to be prolonged, let alone expand.

After the ministers left, Sun Ce summoned Lu Meng, the general responsible for countering the rebellion, alone.

Lu Meng was now an important general of the Song Dynasty, and was awarded the titles of General Zuo, Marquis of Xiaoling, Kaifu, and Yitong.

Wuling was an important military location that Sun Ce personally led a heavy army to besiege when he first attacked Liu Biao. Although it was within the territory of Wuling, it was located on a commercial thoroughfare and was very prosperous.

When Wenpin led his troops in the city and surrendered, the place was not devastated and was therefore very prosperous.

There are more than 4,000 families in Chiling, and Lü Meng has 6,000 fiefs. Therefore, the entire Chiling is actually Lü Meng's fief, and there are more than 1,000 families of generals next door who were also assigned to Lü Meng.

It can be said that these closures given to Lu Meng show how caring and caring Sun Ce is for him.

And Lu Meng also deserves Sun Ce's attention. He is nearly thirty years old this year. He has a strong beard on his face and a pair of piercing tiger eyes. Just by looking at his demeanor, you can tell that he is a tiger general.

More importantly, he would never get involved in the political struggle between the prince's east palace and the second prince, and would stand firmly under Sun Ce.

This is absolutely different from Fan Kuai.

Although Fan Kuai and Liu Bang conquered the world together, they even went through life and death for Liu Bang.

But in the later period, Fan Kuai was the most important person in the political territory of the Han Dynasty. He turned his back on Liu Bang and turned his heart to Lu Pheasant. He even once won over Han Xin for Lu Pheasant.

Han Xin's famous sentence "How come I, Han Xin, have fallen so low in my life that I associate with people like Fan Kuai?" (Sheng Nao associates with Kuai and others!) was the emotion he expressed under this situation.

You know, it was Han Xin who took the initiative to go to Fan Kuai's house to meet him. When Fan Kuai saw Han Xin kneeling down to greet him, he proclaimed himself a minister and said, "Your Majesty is willing to visit me!"

If you want to say that Han Xin has low emotional intelligence or looks down on Fan Kuai, that is impossible. He looks down on him, so why would he visit Fan Kuai in person?

As he was leaving, Han Xin said with a wry smile, Sheng Nao was in company with Kuai et al!

It is conceivable that Fan Kuai's efforts to win over him at that time were never successful. So Queen Lu directly killed her.

When Liu Bang was dying and seriously ill, he finally realized that Fan Kuai, his good brother who had followed him into battle and fought through life and death, had become the most important general in the Lu Pheasant faction.

So he personally ordered Chen Ping to kill Fan Kuai and retrieve Fan Kuai's head, otherwise all the power of the Han Dynasty would be in the hands of Lu Fei.

The result is obvious. The three heroes of the early Han Dynasty were dying and killing. Chen Ping could only protect himself wisely and chose to delay until Liu Bang died of illness.

Since ancient times, the second generation has been prone to trouble.

Liu Bang is inevitable, Sima Yan is inevitable, Yang Jian is inevitable, Li Yuan is inevitable, Zhao Kuangyin is inevitable, and Zhu Yuanzhang is inevitable.

Sun Ce also had to deal with this problem, not only to consider leaving a team for Emperor Taizong of the Song Dynasty, but also to avoid chaos among his relatives and powerful officials.

Lü Meng was undoubtedly the ballast stone in his hands, leading the imperial army with Zhang Liao, Zhao Yun, Jiang Qin and others to prevent changes in the court.

In order to ensure the smooth succession of the throne, two factions have been formed in the court.

The first faction is undoubtedly the Donggong faction headed by the prince and Zhuge Liang. This faction has gathered a large number of important ministers, including Zhang Zhao, Gu Yong, Lu Su, Chen Qun and others, who all support the prince's group. There is no other way. The crown prince's uterus needs companions and civil servants, and they must be selected from the children of these ministers. Whether they want it or not, they have already been tied to the crown prince's uterus.

The other faction is the navy faction headed by the second prince, Zhou Yu. Don't be fooled by this name, thinking that the only people who support the second prince are the navy. In fact, the power of the second prince is not weaker than that of the prince. There is no way that the biggest feature of this faction is that it is rich!

Although there may be a slight gap in power between him and the elders of the prince's faction, who gave the second prince a good biological mother? His biological mother, Zhou Cheng, was in charge of the Jin Office and the Wuxian Weaving Department. The resources she could mobilize were endless, and she provided a lot of help to the second prince's faction in recruiting troops and talents.

The second prince only supported hundreds of scholars, including Jiang Wan, Luo Tong, Jia Kui, Fei Shi, Gao Tanglong, Lu Yu, Wang Can, Cheng Bing and many other celebrities.

These people are all very capable. As long as they participate in the scientific examination of new subjects, they can easily reach high positions.

Do you think that's all?

That would be a big mistake!

With the influence of the Navy, they were also highly involved in the affairs of the Municipal Shipping Department, forming overseas trade, fleets, caravans, and water trade.

It can be said that this group was more active than Sun Ce in the development of the Maritime Silk Road.

After all, the wealth, taxes, materials and even military achievements, slaves, etc. from foreign trade will enhance the strength of the second prince and his family.

The second prince himself may not have wanted to win, but the people surrounding him pushed him forward.

Is Zhou Yu willing to succumb to Zhuge Liang? From then on, let Zhuge Liang control the court and become a powerful minister?

Who among the others doesn’t want to become a minister of Qiandi and take advantage of the opportunity to soar to the sky?

Especially this year, the prince was seriously ill. Although it turned out later that it was just a common cold in children, who can guarantee that the prince will not die young?

It is not uncommon for a prince to die at the age of thirty or forty, not to mention that when the emperor is in his prime, the prince still does not know whether he can survive the emperor.

Once the prince dies, the opportunity for the second prince will come!

And so far, Concubine Zhou is still the emperor's most favored concubine.

"Your Majesty? Your Majesty?" A hesitant voice interrupted Sun Ce's thoughts.

Only then did Sun Ce realize that he had inadvertently lost his mind. Then he immediately gathered his thoughts and looked at his confidant General Lu Meng who had a concerned look in front of him.

He said in a solemn tone: "You are the mainstay of me and the Song Dynasty. I summoned you today to worship the general in person, and you will lead the army to Bazhong to quell the rebellion."

"Now that the imperial court has decided, the treasury is still empty. It cannot withstand the prolongation of the war and cannot allow the war to be bumpy. Therefore, the important task is entrusted to you. You must lead the army to march hundreds of miles and put down the rebellion in one go."

(End of this chapter)