Established a thousand-year family from the end of Qin Dynasty

Chapter 559 Centennial Shandong (Eighteen)
掖城
Familiar negotiating room

The envoys of Yan and Qi pointed at the map of Shandong. The land of Shandong is roughly divided into three parts, namely the Pingyuan County area on the north bank of the Yellow River, which is occupied by Qi State, and the easternmost Gwangju area, which is occupied by The three countries of Yan, Wei, and Jin are divided up, and there is also the Qingzhou area located in the east of Mount Tai, which is an area repeatedly contested by various forces.

Qi State wanted to buy Guangzhou along the way, but Yan State was only willing to sell Qingzhou, not Guangzhou. After all, Guangzhou was already half of Yan State’s direct jurisdiction.

It is okay to sell the occupied areas that have not been digested, but it is absolutely impossible to sell the directly administered territories that have been digested.

The most important point is that Gwangju is too close to Liaodong and Samhan. If Gwangju is in the hands of the Central Plains regime, it will make it difficult for Yan to sleep and eat.

This Gwangju is located in the easternmost part of the Shandong Peninsula. The fleet departing from here will soon reach Liaodong and Sanhan.

Guangzhou is to Yan State, just like Hefei is to Sun Quan, Jingzhou is to Liu Bei, Tongguan is to Guanzhong, Hanzhong is to Bashu, and Yubi is to Gao Huan. It can be said to be very important.

Speaking of the latter, both sides were at war with each other, and after repeated arguing, in the end, Yan State sold Qingzhou to Qi State at a super low price of [-] young and middle-aged men.

Qi State only lost [-] civilians, and easily recovered Qingzhou without a single soldier.

"If Gao Changgong never dies, Qi will never die!"

After the negotiation, Yan Xu commented on King Lanling in private.

As long as King Lanling is still alive, it will be difficult for the Yan State to take advantage of Qi State, at most it can only fight some small advantages.

"Yanlu, in the future it will be a serious trouble for the Central Plains!" When Yan Xu commented on King Lanling, Gao Changgong, King of Lanling also commented on Yan Kingdom.

Qi Guo and Chen Guo deeply felt the threat from the sea. As the traditional Central Plains regime, they only now felt that the magnificent sea could have such a huge threat.

"Turks are good at riding and shooting, and are famous for their cavalry. Yanlu is good at making boats, and is famous for galloping warships."

Lanling King Gao Changgong felt that the sea was more difficult to deal with than the grassland. Although the grassland was vast and vast, it was at least a kind of land, and the sea was too mysterious.

Moreover, Gao Changgong discovered that although the country of Yan is small and the population is small, the soldiers are all elite, the weapons and equipment are more advanced and luxurious than those in the Central Plains, and the horses equipped are all top-notch.
Although the swallow is small, it has all five internal organs, small but refined!

People in the Central Plains don't know much about the Yan Kingdom. In fact, they only think of the Yan Kingdom in Liaodong and the Korean Peninsula, and they don't know the situation of the Yan Kingdom in other overseas regions.

However, the most essential part of Yan State is in Liaodong and the Korean Peninsula, so there is nothing wrong with thinking that Yan State = Liaodong + Korean Peninsula.

This is the understanding of Qi State and Chen State. They know a lot about Yan State. They think that Yan State = Liaodong Peninsula + Korean Peninsula. If they live in the inland Zhou State, they know even less about Yan State. I thought that Yan State only had Liaodong.

Among the many forces, only Goguryeo knows the most about Yan State, because in their eyes, Yan State = Liaodong Peninsula + Korean Peninsula + Overseas Que Island (Woshima). After all, the guild merchant ships of Yan State Que Island often go to the Goguryeo area to buy people. , so Goguryeo vaguely knew that the territory of Yan State was not only Liaodong and North Korea, but also a super large island called "Que Island Islands" overseas.

Although the total population of Yan State is only 200 million, which is only one-twentieth of the Central Plains, the arable land area is one-fifth of the Central Plains, so the per capita arable land area is four times that of the Central Plains people, and this does not include the large number of plantations orchards and hunting grounds.

The arable land area of ​​Yan State is about the same as that of Chen State, but the population is only one-third of that of Chen State.

However, even so, there are still many landless refugees in Yan State, much more than in Chen State.

Obviously, per capita cultivated land is more than that of Chen State, but there are more landless refugees than Chen State. This is because Yan State has not suppressed land annexation for hundreds of years.

As a result, a large amount of land was concentrated in the hands of noble guilds. Ordinary people lost their land and could only be forced to work for nobles or guilds to learn a craft and survive on meager wages. Most people even had a craft to make a living. None, they are not eligible to work, they can only be forced to go bankrupt, and then become slaves to land reclamation.

Obviously there is a large amount of farmland that is uncultivated, but the people are forced to go to overseas desert islands to reclaim wasteland, so that these people can add more arable land and fiscal revenue to the empire.

If people do not have long-term considerations, they must have short-term worries. If we don’t open up wasteland because the farmland is enough now, hundreds of years later, the population will increase, and the farmland will not be enough to support the people. At that time, we will go to open up wasteland. That's too late.

Therefore, we must plan ahead, and continue to open up wasteland when there is still farmland left, so as to avoid too many people in the future, which will lead to the cycle of the dynasty.

Moreover, the mortality rate in overseas land reclamation is very high, which can regulate the population growth rate of Yan State to a certain extent, so as to avoid a sudden explosion of population growth, causing the surplus population that cannot be fed to become rebels such as the Yellow Turban Army.

The court of Yan State wanted to have enough people to open up wasteland, but also didn't want too many people to divide the fields.

There are few people when working, but there are too many people when eating!

Therefore, land reclamation due to the high death rate of slavery will become the long-term policy of the Yan Kingdom, which can increase the area of ​​cultivated land without causing the population to explode uncontrollably in a short period of time.

After the rulers of the Central Plains unified the world, they always used various methods to increase the population, because the newly unified world was generally dilapidated, with a lot of land and less land, so it was necessary to increase the population to plant those uncultivated land.

However, after population growth and land mergers, less land with more people has become less land and more people. At this time, various social conflicts are inevitably very intense, and rebels are as numerous as cow hair, and a new cycle rate begins.

Therefore, by observing the change of dynasties in the Central Plains in the past few years, the Yan State has concluded that the faster the population growth, the faster the country will perish. At the same time, the slower the population growth, the slower the development of national strength.

This is very conflicting. If you want to increase national power, you need to increase the population, but increasing the population will cause internal conflicts to become more and more intense, so it is difficult to make a choice.

So what's the best way?

That is to open up wasteland with high death rates overseas!
The rapid population growth will provide the empire with more land reclamation labor force, thereby enhancing the empire's national strength. At the same time, the large population that has grown will be continuously consumed in overseas land reclamation, so as to avoid the uncontrollable explosive growth of the population, resulting in The empire was unable to support such a large population, which eventually led to various social crises.

In order for the growing population to be willing to open up wasteland overseas with a high mortality rate, land mergers must be tolerated. As long as the people have no land, they can only be forced to go overseas to open up wasteland for a living. How could they be willing to risk their lives to open up wasteland overseas?

Therefore, the policy of condoning land mergers, the policy of opening up wasteland with high death rates overseas, the policy of mass plundering of the population, and the policy of increasing the fertility of the people are complementary to each other, and it is meaningless to simply implement one.

If there is no overseas high-mortality land reclamation policy, but simply condoning land annexation, it will repeat the chaotic times of the end of Han Dynasty, and the people who cannot survive will directly become rebels like the Yellow Turban Army.

(End of this chapter)