Chapter 243: Emperor Xiaowen, the Tree Planting Maniac
Su Ze stood up, took Feng Shu's hand and said:
"Jun Yi is a great talent!"
What is a professional! This is a professional!
To deal with these termites who exploit loopholes in the law, we have to rely on professionals like Feng Shu!
Aren't you taking advantage of a loophole? How can you take advantage of a loophole when you meet a professional like Feng Shu!
However, relying solely on laws is not enough to bring down a family as complicated as the Yang family in Hanzhong. But as long as they can be forced to give up some land, the problems within their family will be exposed.
The larger the family, the greater the conflicts that accumulate within it.
The conflicts between the first branch and other branches, and between the legitimate and illegitimate children, can naturally be suppressed as long as the entire family can continue to expand or maintain the current situation.
If the family loses a large piece of land, these conflicts will be completely uncontrollable.
Su Ze looked at Su Liang again and said:
"Invesco, what do you think?"
Su Liang actually couldn't stand the powerful Hanzhong Yang family.
There are many powerful families in Wugong County. It is not like the Yang family in Hanzhong which is the only powerful family. There is also fierce internal competition, so there are very few powerful families who act so recklessly.
Su Liang also made a suggestion:
"General, let the governor's office issue an order first, requiring the county's wealthy and powerful to register the hidden population."
Su Ze nodded and said, "Continue."
"First, let the wealthy and powerful fill in the registration of population, and then check whether the land is mulberry land. In this way, these wealthy and powerful people will have nothing to say when they take back the land."
We should use courtesy before force. We will let you complete the registration first. If you don't register and then land problems are found, then it would be shameless.
Su Ze said, "Let Su Duan come to Nanzheng and issue an order tomorrow, requiring all households in Hanzhong to report the number of people they have hidden."
"only!"
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This kind of operation against the wealthy families must be carried out slowly, and Su Ze is not in a hurry. This is the advantage of having his own team.
If Su Ze was really just an arrogant military general, he would not be able to control the affairs of the prefectures and counties, nor would he be able to fight against these local tyrants.
Today, Su Ze brought Lu Xiuning and his personal cavalry to inspect the newly granted land near Mianyang County.
Because several major battles took place near Mianyang County, a large amount of unowned land was vacant in the area. Su Ze used this land to settle his meritorious soldiers.
These local powerful families were also at their most decadent time, and the local lawless powerful people had all been dealt with by Su Duan. Su Ze established more than a dozen Sanchang villages near Mianyang County, with disabled veterans as Sanchang. He used various means to liberate a group of slaves imprisoned by the powerful people, and set up two Zhechoufu in Mianyang County.
These villages are Su Ze's treasures, and they are the blade he uses to penetrate the heart of Liangzhou.
When I leave Liangzhou in the future, if the local powerful families want to cause trouble, these Zhechoufu can send troops to suppress them.
After all, the wealthy families supported him only because Qinzhou was in rebellion and they had no choice but to make a choice when they felt insecure.
But these soldiers who were granted land supported me because I was truly their breadwinner.
Su Ze also planned to carry out a land grant and Sanchangcun reform on the land he had seized from the Yang family of Hanzhong, in order to drive a nail into the heart of the Liangzhou nobles.
October was almost here. After Su Ze and his party left Nanzheng City, they traveled for half a day before reaching the first village.
However, Su Ze did not enter the village. Instead, he sat down under a tree outside the village and took out some dry food to distribute to the soldiers.
Lu Xiuning lit a small fire, boiled the water, let it cool, and then distributed it to everyone to drink.
The local party leader Sun Huo was a soldier from Longxi Prefecture who was wounded in the Battle of Wuxing. After being recuperated in the Sick Children's Camp for a month and suffering a lifelong disability in his left foot, he was diagnosed by the Sick Children's Officer as being unfit to continue serving in the army. The military judge who recorded his military merits found him.
The military judge gave him two choices.
The first was to return to Longxi County. According to the military order issued by Su Ze, he would be given 40 hu of rice and two donkeys as compensation for the disabled soldiers. He could also take away two Qinzhou rebels he captured on the battlefield and bring them back to Longxi County as domestic slaves.
The second option was to stay in Liangzhou and serve as the party leader in Sanchang Village, which was newly established by General Su. While his disability pension remained unchanged, he would be granted enough land in the local area and given a working ox.
Sun Huo chose to stay in Liangzhou without much hesitation, and his wife and children were soon sent to Liangzhou.
Sun Huo's parents had passed away, and there was relatively little land in Longxi. He had originally obtained sufficient land as stated in the "Equal Field System", and his family had always lived in poverty.
There was no way around it. It had been twenty years since Emperor Xiaowen granted land, and the annexation and expansion of the wealthy families, the natural growth of the population, and the shortage of newly granted land were universal problems.
In the more densely populated Hedong region, men were legally granted 40 mu of land, but they might only get less than 10 mu.
The original law stipulated that women were to be granted 20 mu of land, but now they were not given any land at all.
The land in Liangzhou is more fertile than that in Longxi County, and there is enough land to be granted, so Sun Huo chose to stay here.
However, many soldiers still chose to return to their hometowns. Su Ze also paid full pensions to them. It was a common idea for people to be rooted to their land, but as long as there were people like Sun Huo who stayed behind to serve as the three leaders, these villages would become his base.
Sun Huo received the news and came to see Su Ze with some fruits.
At first, Sun Huo was a little reserved, but he was soon infected by Su Ze's casual state and gradually relaxed.
"Now is the slack season for farming, what are you busy with?"
This year is the first year for these newly appointed people, so Su Ze did not arrange training for the soldiers of the Zhechoufu during the slack season, but the whole village is still very busy.
Sun Hu said:
"General, our land is ours, so why would we have time to spare? The villagers are retting hemp now."
"Retting flax? Go and take a look."
Su Ze stood up. He had never farmed before he traveled through time, nor had he farmed after he traveled through time.
I had been wandering around the farmlands near Nanzheng before, and the slaves of those wealthy families were like zombies. They did whatever their masters told them to do, and they didn't resist or take the initiative, so they managed the land very poorly.
Coming to this newly established village today, Su Ze felt the vitality. Everyone in the village was busy spontaneously. Although it was hard work, they all had smiles on their faces.
The men in the village carried baskets on their backs and unloaded the hemp collected from the nearby mountains and hemp fields. Then the women picked the hemp and soaked it in water tanks.
A peasant woman with nimble hands and feet is instructing the young women in the village to retting hemp.
Sun Huo pointed at the peasant woman and said proudly:
"General, this is my wife."
It turns out that it is used to make linen.
Su Ze had seen this record in "The Book of Si Sheng".
After the hemp is harvested in autumn, it needs to go through a series of steps to be turned into linen.
The stems of the hemp grass must first be soaked and allowed to ferment naturally to achieve the purpose of partial degumming. This step is called retting.
This process needs to continue until the second year, then the peasant woman has to peel off the hemp skin, spin the hemp fibers into yarn, dry it, make hemp balls, starch the hemp thread (before weaving it, it must be coated with rice starch to make the thread flexible and smooth), and make cloth.
The whole process takes about half a year, and every step needs to be done well before the linen can be woven.
And these linens are the fabrics used for clothes worn by the people.
This is the process of making linen. The process of making silk is even more complicated than this, so it is normal that the slaves of the Yang family in Hanzhong cannot weave silk.
Su Ze called Sun Huo's wife over. The peasant woman was a little embarrassed when she saw Su Ze, but she soon started to communicate with him normally. Su Ze asked:
"Can you weave silk?"
Sun Huo's wife said proudly: "To answer the general, before I got married, I was a famous weaver in the area!"
Sun Huo was afraid that his wife was bragging too much, so he kicked her, but she glared back and said:
"If I didn't know how to weave silk, would you have given such a heavy betrothal gift?"
Su Ze couldn't help but laugh, and then asked:
“Can I weave silk next year?”
Sun Huo's wife shook her head and said:
"The mulberry trees have to be transplanted next spring, so there won't be enough mulberry leaves to feed the silkworms until the year after next."
Su Ze felt a little regretful, but that's how agricultural production is, it has a long cycle and requires investment according to the farming season.
When Su Ze took over the land, it was already past the time for planting trees. Although mulberry trees grow fast, they still need time to mature.
Su Ze asked again: "Can you plant mulberry trees?"
Sun Hu nodded quickly and said:
"We all studied with Master Su Nong back then."
Sunong promoted agricultural technology in Longxi County, and the people of Longxi called him Master Sunong to show their respect.
Su Ze nodded with satisfaction and said:
"Mulberry trees are good things. Emperor Xiaowen highly praised mulberry trees."
"When the winter grain storage runs out in early spring, it is the hardest time for the people. Eating mulberries can help them prepare for famine and fill the void."
"Mulberries can be dried and stored, and can also be used in times of famine."
"Mulberries can also be used to make wine and vinegar, and can be used for seasoning."
"Mulberry bark can be used to make paper, so plant mulberry trees well."
Mr. and Mrs. Sun immediately bowed and accepted the order.
Su Ze said again:
"Emperor Xiaowen also requested that elm trees be planted among the mulberry trees. Do you have any seedlings?"
Sun Huo said quickly, "Yes, yes, there are many elm trees planted in Hanzhong. The county government has already said that next year, the area of saplings will be allocated according to the mulberry year."
Su Ze nodded with satisfaction, and his subordinates wrote down the name of the county magistrate who governed the village, and would commend the magistrate when Su Ze returned to Nanzheng.
Su Ze said:
"Elm is also a good thing. Elm leaves can satisfy hunger. In addition, you can raise early silkworms. Feed the silkworms with new elm leaves first, and then feed the mulberry trees after the mulberry trees sprout."
Elm trees are also an important emergency supply material and are highly recommended by the "tree-planting maniac" Emperor Xiaowen.
He required that four elm trees be planted for every acre of mulberry field, and even asked his ministers to write poems praising elm trees and call on the people to plant elm trees.
Among so many emperors in history, after Emperor Xiaowen, there was only one emperor, Zhu Yuanzhang, who attached so much importance to the most basic agricultural production and considered famine relief for the people.
Zhu Yuanzhang was also a tree-planting enthusiast.
Su Ze asked again:
"Where's the date tree?"
Emperor Xiaowen strongly advocated the planting of jujube trees, and the usefulness of jujubes is self-evident.
Sun Hu said:
"It's not so easy to plant jujube seedlings. It seems that it's not easy to grow jujube trees in Hanzhong."
Su Ze nodded and said:
"When Sunong comes, let him see what kind of fruit trees are suitable for planting in Hanzhong. If we don't want to plant dates, we can plant apricots and peaches."
Su Ze was clear that agricultural production needed to be adapted to local conditions, since he had professionals under his command.
After personally visiting these Sanchang villages, Su Ze was in a good mood. Once more Sanchang villages were established, he would be able to make good use of the land of Hanzhong.
In fact, during the late Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms period, Hanzhong was richer than Guanzhong.
That was still thanks to Zhuge Liang.
It can only be said that Prime Minister Zhuge is indeed a genius in domestic affairs. Relying on the territories of Yizhou and Hanzhong, he was able to fight back and forth with Cao Wei, and the economy of Shu Han was even better than that of Cao Wei.
At that time, Cao Wei occupied the most important areas in the world: Guanzhong, Hedong and Henan!
Now Su Ze understands that the endowment of the land itself is naturally one aspect, and on the other hand, productivity must also be linked to production relations.
Shu Han had carried out land reforms. In addition to grain, Shu brocade produced in Hanzhong and Shuzhong was a luxury item that the upper classes of Cao Wei and Sun Wu competed to buy.
Prime Minister Zhuge used these lands to produce food to supply the army and also produced high-quality Shu brocade.
Can this be compared with Cao Wei's "slave army hereditary system" and the semi-serf state under the economy of large estates of the wealthy families?
Su Ze checked the condition of the livestock again, including cattle, mules and donkeys, which are important means of production. The livestock manure can also be used as fertilizer, which can increase grain output.
The same goes for silkworms. The feces of silkworms can also be used as fertilizer, and eating silkworm pupae is also a protein supplement.
The outputs of these are much higher than those of simply farming, but the premise of all this is to have stable income and long-term goals, and to cultivate the land carefully and take care of it patiently.
Only self-employed farmers can do this.
Su Ze became even more convinced that these aristocratic manor systems were backward production systems and should be swept into the dustbin of history.
At this moment, a messenger summoned by the system found Su Ze and handed him the document reporting Hou Jing's victory.
In fact, Su Ze had already known about Wu Xing's victory through the system. After receiving the official victory report, Su Ze ordered:
"Send a military judge to verify the military merits, and once they are confirmed, distribute the rewards on the spot."
"Have Hou Jing escort Yang Shaoxing to Mianyang County. I want to personally inquire about the situation of the Baima Di tribe on Qiuchi Mountain."
The hidden dangers on Qiuchi Mountain must be completely eliminated. Taking advantage of this victory, Su Ze plans to forcibly recruit some soldiers from the Baima Di and pull them into his own group.
It seems that there will be no major wars this year, but it is also clear that there will be no peace next year, so Su Ze needs to hurry up and digest the occupied land.
Su Ze looked towards the north. The Guanzhong rebellion was just a prelude to the collapse of the Northern Wei Dynasty. Its power was far less than that of the powder keg of the Six Garrisons.
It can be seen from Gaoping County where Yu Jin is located that the situation in the entire north is very tense at this time.
However, the important officials in the court of Luoyang were still immersed in a life of luxury.
In the historical timeline before Su Ze traveled through time, the Rebellion of the Six Towns occurred in the fourth year of Zhengguang, which was three years later.
But Su Ze had a hunch that if King Jiangyang and his gang of insects continued to cause trouble, the Six Towns Rebellion might not be far away.
(End of this chapter)