sweeping the world

Chapter 731 Nothing is set in stone
Since the exclusive Confucianism came up with the "response between heaven and man", the weather of the country is directly linked to the character of the ruler. Even if a certain part of the palace is struck by lightning, it is definitely the fault of the ruler. What kind of deeds caused God's dissatisfaction, and if a disaster happened somewhere, the first thought of the people would definitely be that the ruler did something bad to implicate them.

Dong Zhongshu's "Response between Heaven and Man" is to restrain the imperial power. The starting point is naturally excellent, that is, after the imperial power and the nagging of gods and gods are involved, the Zhuxia civilization has entered the abyss of reincarnation.

Anyway, the ruler is not good, if you kill him and change the ruler, God may not be angry. Similar thoughts have dominated Zhuxia for nearly 2000 years.Not many people think that the climate is a natural change, and even created a "five virtue cycle" to explain the change of dynasties.

Throughout the history of Zhuxia, every large-scale natural disaster must bring disasters, even if the authorities are effective in disaster relief, disasters cannot be avoided.At that time, if the national strength of the imperial court was not bad, and the army had not been completely corrupted and lost its combat effectiveness, the ruling class would naturally be able to survive, but the country would also be severely damaged by disasters, laying the groundwork for the foreign race to attack the country.

There is only one dynasty that performed best in the face of natural disasters in all dynasties, and that is the dynasty known as the Weak Song Dynasty.

The Xiang Army system was established in the Song Dynasty. Whenever a disaster occurred, the local people were forcibly incorporated into the Xiang Army system. It was not for the purpose of truly training them to become battle-ready soldiers. In fact, regardless of men, women, or children, they were controlled by the Xiang Army system to avoid natural disasters. A large number of people were displaced and became refugees.

The destruction of the Central Plains Dynasty basically began with the surge in the number of refugees. A large number of people who lost their families wandered aimlessly. Corruption makes it difficult to guarantee the order of the country, and if there are careerists who raise their arms so much, it will immediately ignite the flames of war.

The Xiang army system in the Song Dynasty effectively reduced the phenomenon of refugees when natural disasters occurred, that is, once they entered the Xiang army, it was difficult to return to the possibility of becoming a free citizen. One of the reasons for Song.

"The Great Han does not restrict population movement, and the mountains and rivers are open in disaster years." Sang Yu felt that he was not alarmist: "We should prevent the (Han) Emperor Ai's old incident from happening."

The Emperor Ai was the last Emperor of the Western Han Dynasty before Wang Mang established a new dynasty. At that time, there were frequent natural disasters. In addition, the land annexation was very severe at that time, which led to the frightening number of refugees in the country and the demise of the Western Han Dynasty. Give the hammer.

"The recruitment of workers by the great Han is indeed effective in preventing excessive refugees, but it is difficult to prevent them completely." Cai You did not think that the old incident of Emperor Ai of the Han Dynasty would happen, but he had to say something: "The country has no private annexation of land, But...most people don’t have much land.”

Liu Yan was stunned.

Isn't it?The state of Han followed the old path of the Qin Empire. Most of the land was owned by the state, and private trading of land was not allowed. This effectively curbed land mergers, but the people really didn't have much land.

"When you enlist in the army, you will be granted land, which is no less than Empress Lu's average land." What Xu Zheng said was that in the early Han Dynasty, Lu Zhi's equalization of land was implemented in order to restore national power. It was a policy of rewarding land according to titles: You have the experience of enlisting in the army, and you have guaranteed at least one hundred acres, what else do you want?"

The equalization of land by Lu Zhi was to restore the economy in the early Han Dynasty.During the period of Emperor Wenwen and Emperor Hanjing, free land was awarded many times, that is, no longer depending on whether there is a title, the land can be obtained with a head, and most of the land is cultivated, which also creates Wenjing. However, it also destroyed the title system.

It is hard to say whether it is good or bad to allow land to be bought and sold privately, but if land can be bought and sold privately, land mergers will inevitably occur, and people who lose their land will generally become refugees.

"The territory of the Han Dynasty is as large as that of the former Han Dynasty, but the population is very small." Sang Yu glanced at Liu Yan who looked thoughtful, and continued: "If you have soil, you should have wealth."

In order to avoid the phenomenon of exiles under natural disasters, the Han Dynasty has been conscripting corvee and recruiting manpower to build national projects, and has gathered the young and strong of the people to the greatest extent. The strong, the old and the weak, women and children can't go into chaos, and even if there is a chaos, it will be easily suppressed.This is one of the measures taken by the authorities to deal with natural disasters and prevent civil unrest.

Initiating national projects in the year of natural disasters is another effective measure.After all, national projects provide food and drink, and non-corvee groups also receive wages.

The hiring of labor force by the state did not start in the present-day Han Dynasty. In fact, it was very popular as early as the pre-Qin period, but most of them were small-scale, and it was not recorded by historians in just one case.

To put it bluntly, why should an extremely common thing be preached cautiously?Only rare events, especially good ones intended to encourage others to emulate, are publicized.It can be seen from this that the more the spirit is preached, the more lacking that spirit will be.

"Naturally, more land can be awarded." Xu Zheng sneered: "Getting it without compensation is ruining the hearts of the people. Why don't we start more wars?"

Sang Yu immediately covered his forehead, and behind him was a look of wandering in the sky, and he didn't plan to say anything more.

"When the calamity comes, send troops abroad..." Ji Chang had no choice but to say, "If the Taiwei can ensure that food can be obtained from the outside world, why not?"

Xu Zheng's lips moved, but he still didn't say anything in the end.

The starting point of the Han army's outward campaign was to obtain food. The attack on the Gupta Dynasty did not go smoothly as expected. Nearly a year later, they stayed on the front side of the sea war, but it was because they entered the Gupta Dynasty and established diplomatic relations with quite a few countries.

After the great war in Asanyang, the Pingman Xiaowei Department captured quite a few Gupta nobles, and those nobles were willing to use gold to redeem their lives and freedom.

Under the auspices of Huan Wen, the release of prisoners of war went quite smoothly, but the request to use food instead of gold did not get the consent of the Gupta Dynasty, so the release of prisoners of war was suspended later.

It can be seen that the Gupta Dynasty was not stupid. They were all determined to fight the Han Dynasty. They were definitely not happy that the Han army could obtain food and fodder nearby, and would rather pay more gold than a grain of grain.

Unable to obtain food from the Gupta Dynasty, the Han Dynasty could only open another channel.

At present, Han ships have arrived in Persia and Egypt, and not only have the permission of Rome and Sasanian to purchase grain from the government, but also from the private sector.The food obtained from the two countries is constantly "passed" back to the mainland. There are two batches of relatively large transactions. Although the state of food shortage has not been alleviated much, it is a reassurance to be able to obtain food stably from abroad.

Egypt has been a granary since long ago, the result of nearly a thousand years of hard work by the ancient Egyptians.

Ancient Egypt's agricultural technology was quite good. Furthermore, the area of ​​Egypt is also unique for farming. With multiple vertical and horizontal water systems, and a perfect irrigation system, wouldn't it become a good grain-producing area?

The Romans have relied on Egypt for hundreds of years of grain, and Egypt has never disappointed the Romans. The grain fleet transported from Egypt to various provinces of Rome through the Mediterranean Sea is endless all year round, and the total amount exceeds the supply provided by Gaul and Spain. amount.

The current Rome is falling into divisions. In fact, the Egyptian region is not in the hands of Constantius. The fact that the Han Kingdom can buy grain from Egypt is the result of negotiations between Constantius and his brothers.The Han Dynasty only purchased grain from Egypt, and it didn't care how the two divided Roman powers distributed the profits.

The Persian Sasanian is geographically closer to Han, and they also agreed with Han to purchase grain, but in fact, the Sasanian officials were not able to provide a large amount of grain to sell to Han.

The current Sasanian dynasty is actually not easy. Civil unrest broke out frequently in various places, and the Sasanian military itself lacked food.Fortunately, the political system of the Persians is very complicated. The fact that there is not much food in the treasury of the dynasty does not mean that there is no food for the people, especially the big nobles are not short of food at all. The center of the dynasty has no money to buy from the big nobles, but the Han has plenty of money.

Being able to obtain food imports from Rome and Persia, and the Indochina Peninsula has been supplying it, has really greatly improved the internal environment of Han.

If the Han Dynasty had no way to obtain food from the outside like the previous dynasties, there would really not be too many ways to deal with the disaster year. Probably we can only let the disaster area fend for itself, and wait for the people in the disaster area to rise up if they can’t survive. Send troops to suppress.

The wars caused by natural disasters were either suppressed by the authorities, or the authorities were changed. The mountains and rivers were broken and returned to stability, and time healed the pain.There really are quite a few examples of this, aren't there?

There are external channels for obtaining food. The Prime Minister’s Office has been maintaining the amount of food on the market in various places. As long as the food on the market can be provided stably, let’s not talk about maintaining the original low food price. Turning up and down is actually within the acceptable range.

In fact, as long as the people can survive, not so many people will want to make trouble with the violent machine of the state, not to mention that the authorities have done nothing.

"However, it's not enough." Liu Yan just learned that there has been heavy rain in the northwest for four consecutive days, followed by light rain for nearly half a month: "That rain is far from enough to alleviate the drought."

It was just an unexpected rain, but it played an unexpected role for Liu Yan. According to the joint report of Xie Ai and Li Kuang, the Northwest was originally dark and turbulent. The party is ready to revolt.As a result, when it rained, the people immediately came out of the argument that God did not allow Han to rule the Northwest. They cooperated with many official measures, and those rebellious parties immediately hibernated.

Liu Yan has enough understanding of the characteristics of Zhuxia civilization, but he still underestimates the argument that "the heart of the people is the heart of heaven".

In fact, "the heart of the people is the heart of heaven" is more appropriate on the other hand. The harvest of the farming nation depends on the face of God.But once God does not give face, it is the ruler who works day and night to let the people live a good life, and the action has not made progress due to the relationship between manpower and material resources, so the people will not care whether the ruler is doing things.

How many emperors who have done nothing good all their lives have sat on the throne steadily, and how many emperors who are diligent and want to do good things are too busy to save their empire from extinction?
Liu Yan knew that this large-scale drought was a hurdle for him, and that was why he insisted on clearing up the surrounding aliens regardless of public opinion.

There are natural disasters, and there are actual threats from external alien races. At this time, the country is busy dealing with natural disasters, and it may not be able to deal with it. If the alien races come over again, the country will be overthrown in that moment. Liu Yan will never allow such a thing to happen .

"It's raining in the northwest, but Guanzhong, Central Plains, and Northern Xinjiang..." Ji Chang didn't finish his sentence. After a while, he sighed and said, "Perhaps there should be new measures to stabilize and inspire people's hearts?"

Xu Zheng asked: "The new measure that the Prime Minister mentioned is to equalize the land for free, right?"

Even if Ji Chang had the heart, he didn't dare to say it out, but he really thought that a round of granting land for free to the common people would effectively win the hearts of the people.

When the disaster year is coming, it is absolutely necessary to maintain the stability of the people's hearts. There is nothing better than granting land as a means of buying, but Ji Chang really dare not mention it. Whoever dares to propose free land grants will be punished by the military shredded.

Sang Yu, Cai You, Lu Yi and the others looked at each other silently at this moment. The responsibilities they shouldered decided one point. They must be worried that civil unrest would break out. For a long time, I really don't want to mention any internal affairs.

Liu Yan actually understood very well that equalizing land was definitely a killer weapon, and that was something that was naturally determined by the farming nation.

After the new courts of the past dynasties took over the world, could it be that they used land equalization to win the hearts of the people, and quickly stabilized the hearts of the people.

As for the farming people, if there is a piece of land under their name, people will have a peaceful mind, and it can even be said that they will be bound by the land for a lifetime.The country is also happy that the people don't have too much thought, it is best to live from birth to old age, anyway, just don't leave that land.

Liu Yan does not engage in land equalization to ensure that the military merit system does not collapse, but he also has to think about the characteristics of the farming nation, and recently has been thinking about whether there is any way to get the best of both worlds.

"What are those people making a fuss about recently?" Liu Yan's question made the ministers a little unresponsive.He refers to those cultural people: "The prime minister, you can make him discuss the changes in land in the past dynasties."

Ji Chang was shocked at first, then overjoyed. He ignored all the soldiers who reacted with livid faces at the same time, and responded loudly: "No!"

Liu Yan glanced at the military ministers who had changed their faces, and said, "You can go and listen."

Naturally, the military didn't dare to show embarrassment to Liu Yan, and could only obey orders.

　The chapter number in the previous chapter was wrong, but the content was correct.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)