On September 26, the great court discussion on rewarding merits finally came to an end successfully after reaching so many consensuses.

Li Su himself was not in Chang'an, so he had to send angels to summon him and the southern generals for his rewards and titles.

The situation of the generals in Hedong is similar. There is only one Zhuge Liang. Because he went to Beijing in person, his promotion was instantly fulfilled.

In addition, when Li Su went south to governor Jingyi and Jiaozhou military affairs last year, he also left his son in Beijing and left a concubine Zhou Ying to take care of his son.

Zhou Ying often walked with the imperial concubine Zhen Jiang, and Li Su's legitimate son was often taken to the palace for ten days and half a month to play with the prince and princess. Calculate the time Li Su has gone south for more than one year, so his eldest daughter is almost five years old this year, and his son is about to be three years old.

Zhuge Liang and Li Su have a teacher-student status, so after the court meeting, they will go to Li Su to visit the Marquis' Mansion in Chang'an, report the good news about his mentor and the duke in advance, and help explain it.

Zhou Ying was careful. Considering that her husband had been away from him for a year, although she was of the same age as Zhuge Liang, she was only two or three years older, so she just asked the maid to set up a curtain to meet him in the main hall of the Hou Mansion.

Zhuge Liang was very open-minded and directly conveyed his congratulations to his master's wife:

"Congratulations to the master's wife, whom Imeng's master was the Duke of Shengen. Yesterday, the court decided to use the ten northern counties of Kuaiji County as their fiefs, and was called Kuaiji County Duke. Han Shanyin, Shangyu, Yuyao, Juzhang, Yinxian, Shanxian, Shining, Zhuji, Wushang, Changshan."

Many of these place names need not be explained, and they were also called this name in later generations. Shanyin is Shaoxing, Juzhang is Ningbo, Wushang is Yiwu, and Changshan is Jinhua.

Generally speaking, the land that Liu Bei granted to Li Su for the first time actually only accounts for a very small part of the total area of ​​Kuaiji County, equivalent to two and a half prefecture-level cities in later generations (Shaoxing Ningbo, half a Jinhua).

However, in terms of population and household count, this is no small amount.

There are 22 counties in Kuaiji County, with a total of 120,000 households and 550,000 people. There are 90,000 households and 420,000 people in these ten counties, accounting for 80% of the county. (The three counties in Jiangdong have a total population of more than 2 million, with the smallest people in Kuaiji, and the large number of people in Danyang and Wu County)

The area of ​​Kuaiji County is equivalent to two-thirds of Zhejiang Province south of Qiantang River in later generations, plus the entire Fujian Province. According to prefecture-level cities, there are eight cities in Zhejiang and nine cities in Fujian.

The three northernmost cities in later generations are now divided into twelve counties (there are Wuning in Jinhua and Feng'an in later generations, and the two counties were not granted to Li Su).

There were only ten counties in the south in the fourteen prefecture-level cities in the south. It can be seen that most of the southern part of Kuaiji in the late Han Dynasty were rampant, and there were very few taxpayers who included households in Qimin.

Especially in Fujian, there were only three counties in the area of ​​a whole province in later generations: Dongzhi (Fuzhou, the only county where Sun Ce had massacred the city, when he attacked Wang Lang), Jian'an (Jianou), Jiangle.

In history, Sun Wu had been farming in Pingshanyue in the south. It was not until 260 years that he split Fujian from Kuaiji County and set up a separate county, called Jian'an County. After the demolition, there were finally seven counties in Fujian.

Zhou Ying and the other women did not understand the political thoughts behind these geography and enthronement. So after listening to Zhuge Liang's retelling, he was unable to understand the key points for a while, and he did not know whether Liu Bei was being generous to Li Suk or whether he was still a reservation.

Zhou Ying then asked for advice modestly: "I am a woman who is not sure about the major affairs of the court. I don't know if the fief is assigned to it, does it have a deep meaning?"

Zhuge Liang is so smart that even though he is through the curtain, he can feel Zhou Ying's confusion from the pause and hesitation of the other party.

He came here today to explain the profound meaning of the Shengjun in private and help Liu Bei communicate with the king and ministers of Li Su.

Because when Li Su had previously hinted to Liu Bei that "for the sake of the example of future generations, he would not be the prime minister before the age of 30", Li Su thought that he would get the duke before Guan Yu.

In order to avoid suspicion, Li Su did not participate in the discussion on the treatment of the duke. Now the results of the discussion have come out, and some of the profound meanings and good intentions of Li Su must be clear to him.

Zhuge Liang helped interpret: "Don't worry, Master's wife, your Majesty and the Three Dukes agreed so well, and he made plans for the long-term plan for Master Li.

If only ten counties in Kuaiji are granted, then there will be more rewards in the future, so there will be a lot of room for rewards, so that you will not be rewarded if you have great achievements. Perhaps after Jianye breaks through and Sun Jing is awarded the title of the head, Wu Ning and Feng'an will be granted the title of Master Li.

Because this dynasty has established a new county monarchy system, it is easy to add county fiefs within a county, and it is extremely difficult to add fiefs across counties and are easy to overcome, and it will also lead to the random imitation of later generations. Your Majesty’s title of Li Shi’s name is to set an example for his descendants.

Secondly, although only ten counties are given to it, Kuaiji has already given all the fertile land of taxes. In fact, it accounts for 80% of Kuaiji's benefits, which can be said to be of great real profit but low reputation.

Again, the imperial court stipulated that those who were granted a county title would have their descendants reduced their fiefs by one county. Your Majesty chose Kuaiji, which had a large number of counties, to give Li the opportunity to continue to make contributions and add to the county.

If he makes good use of it, all the twenty-two counties in his later years will be granted and passed down to descendants. Then he will be reduced to only one county after twenty-first generations, and then he will not reduce it and will last forever.

Looking at the geography of the imperial court maps and geography, it is also very difficult to find a county like Kuaiji, which has a remote population and a small number of households, but has so many counties.

Even if there are three or five heroes in the future who have been revived, no other county can be reduced to the last county just like Li Shi."

Zhuge Liang interpreted the key points of these institutional design to Zhou Ying. Only then did Zhou Ying realize that there were so many tricks in it, and it was already a good intention to give concessions to his husband, without making the system itself loose and the grace was flooded.

Zhou Ying had never seen such a long-term plan. She subconsciously bit her lip behind the curtain and sighed: "It's only been reduced to only one county in twenty-first life... This is too long-term.

The previous Han Dynasty was passed down to 12 emperors, and the next Han Dynasty was passed down to 12 emperors. There were only 24 emperors in total in the two Han Dynasty, and many of them were peer brothers and brothers. Apart from those, nine generations of the previous Han Dynasty, eight generations of the Later Han Dynasty, and only seventeen generations of the human kings. I am afraid it will take five hundred years to complete the use of the twenty-first generation."

Zhou Ying doesn’t understand politics, she is still worried that His Majesty will be able to fulfill his rejuvenation for five hundred years...

However, she actually felt less casually, because the emperor generally had a shorter lifespan than the ministers.

For example, those "Four Generations and Three Dukes" in the Eastern Han Dynasty were not super long-lived - of course this is also a survivor effect. It can be understood that relying on qualifications to survive until the three Dukes, all of which have to be older. There may have been dozens of families with this potential, but only Yang Yuan and the two families lived long enough for five generations in a row.

The Yuan family was not considered a prominent family at the beginning of the Western Han Dynasty, and it is impossible to verify how many generations it has reproduced in four hundred years. However, the Yang family was granted the title of Marquis when Liu Bang was the 11th generation, and Yang Xiu was the 12th generation. The emperors at the same time had already reached the 17th generation, and the Yang family forced to squeeze out the difference between five generations by their lifespan.

(Note: The two generations of the Yang family at the reciprocity of the Han Dynasty were particularly outrageous. Yang Zhen, the first generation of the Yang family, refused Deng Qi's victory in 107 years, and his father Yang Bao refused Wang Mang's victory in 7 years (at that time, Wang Mang did not claim to be emperor, and he puppetted Ru Ziying). The interval between father and son's resistance to victory in 100 years was a complete 100 years, and Wang Mang, Guang, Ming, Zhang, and Five Emperors.)

However, Zhou Ying felt that five hundred years were out of hope, and it was difficult to use the so-called "the royal family was deliberately giving grace" for such a long time.

However, in Zhuge Liang's eyes, all this was far from over. He realized that the little teacher's wife opposite the curtain had never seen the world, so he had to pause for a moment. When the other party digested the information, he would interpret the subsequent bargaining chips and profound meanings down the road, and organized the wording more tactfully to avoid scaring the other party.

Zhuge Liang continued to argue: "My wife should not think randomly. Master Li is good at understanding the ways of governing chaos, revolutionizing hundreds of years of bad policies, continuing the livelihood of poor people, and eradicating evil sayings of demons and confusing people's hearts. In the future, the world will be peaceful for a long time, and it will be beyond ordinary people.

Your Majesty hopes that Li Shi's title will last for five hundred years, which is just the basis, and there are other profound meanings behind it. I hope that Li Shi's descendants will also be diligent in governing, appease the local area, and benefit both the country and the country. In this way, it is possible to allow the Duke's fiefdoms to be inherited for a longer time."

Zhou Ying was already dazzled and unimaginable, but she just asked for advice with a humble heart: "I wonder what other court laws are involved?"

Zhuge Liang: "The laws and regulations of the state court are set up in counties in the local areas, and orders are set up at more than 10,000 households, and chiefs are set up at less than 10,000 households, and the ranks are also different according to the number of households.

If there are more than 10,000 households in the county, less than 20,000 households, the county magistrate has a rank of 600 stones, and if there are more than 20,000 households, the county magistrate has a rank of 1,000 stones. Of course, after His Majesty reformed his salary last year, it has changed to an annual salary of 600,000 to 1 million yuan.

In addition, according to practice, if the population of a county soars after years of governance and exceeds 40,000 households, it will mostly be demolished into two counties, each with about 20,000 households in order to manage and prevent the authority of a county magistrate and the people directly under the jurisdiction of the people."

Zhuge Liang paused for a moment when he said this. After Zhou Ying understood, he immediately asked: "What does this have to do with His Majesty's decision to be named "Kuaiji County Duke"?"

Zhuge Liang: "The fief of Li Shi was in Pi County and belonged to Shu County. If the master's wife opened the map and looked at it, it would not be difficult to find that the county towns around Pi County and even the entire Shu County were already extremely dense, and a county was set up thirty or forty miles apart.

Within forty miles around Chengdu, there are Pi County, Jiangyuan, Guangdu, and Xindu. Within seventy miles, there are Luo County, Mianzhu, Duan'an and Linqiong. This is because Shu County is the country of Tianfu, and the Chengdu Plain is fertile and rich. Although the past chaotic times were short, the population was still extremely dense.

If Your Majesty does not transfer the title to Li Shi and just expand his fief from Pi County to Shu County, there will be no room for the population to continue to grow and demolish the county, and you will be trapped by the area of ​​the Chengdu Plain.

When it comes to Kuaiji, it is completely different. The land is vast and sparsely populated. Although it is blocked by mountains and rivers and broken terrain, Master Li is good at building sea boats and can communicate fiefs by sea, and develop all the narrow coastal areas that are dangerously divided by mountains and are often difficult to develop.

Kuaiji was at the peak of his two emperors, and there were more than 800,000 people. Now, the wars have been reduced to 120,000 households and 550,000, divided into 22 counties. According to the court rules of the demolition of 40,000 counties, if the population of Kuaiji develops to more than 880,000 households in the future, the 22 counties will reach 40,000 households. At that time, the fiefs of descendants of Li Shi will be changed from 22 counties to 23 counties and 24 counties...

In this way, the dividends of governing the local area will be shared with the family of the Duke of the County. Those who are dukes should not be polite and polite, but should be generous and carefree, persuade farmers and workers, and rest with the people. If they develop well and demolish more, then each generation will return a county to the court, and the rest can still last for several generations."

Zhou Ying exclaimed when she heard this: "We need to develop Kuaiji to 880,000 households before the county can be demolished? That isn't that the entire Kuaiji population is at least 4 million? I'm afraid it's one-tenth of the Han Dynasty. And the duke only has the right to eat, rent and tax, and cannot interfere in the local government? Developing and persuading farmers and workers is the responsibility of local officials. Will it be a taboo?"

Zhuge Liang: "Well, there aren't so many. If you really reach 880,000 households, you will be demolished from 22 counties to 44 counties. In fact, as long as one county reaches 40,000 households first, and there are 10,000 or 20,000 households in the neighboring county, you can demolish it.

As for power, the duke really cannot interfere in politics in the fiefdom. Collecting taxes and governing the people is also the responsibility of local officials. But yesterday, His Majesty agreed with the ministers to check the account and tax for the duke. After all, it is necessary to eat rent and tax, and has the right to check whether the local officials are greedy. In addition, developing industry, commerce and industries in the local area is a civil act and is not considered to be interfering in politics."

In order to prevent local demolition of counties from being "blocked" and there are also requirements for the development level of neighboring counties to be demolished. In order to prevent "after demolishing a county, the population of neighboring counties will influx, expanding to more than 40,000 households, and then demolishing them. As a result, neighboring counties have been sucked by blood and not many people."

So if there are 40,000 households in a county and less than 10,000 households in the neighboring county next door, then you will choose to dive the area of ​​some villages in the 40,000 county to neighboring counties with fewer people instead of demolishing them directly.

Therefore, as long as Kuaiji develops to more than 10,000 households in all counties, some counties have 20,000 households, and some counties have 40,000 households, the process of demolition can be started. According to this algorithm, basically there are 300,000 or nearly 400,000 households, and demolition will be started.

In other words, in the later generations, eight cities in southern Zhejiang plus the entire Fujian, the population was close to 2 million people and could be demolished.

This is relatively easy to do. Take Fujian for example. During the Western Han Dynasty, a province had only one county in the east. By the Eastern Han Dynasty, Jianou and Jiangle were all along the county town of Dongzhi, the Minjiang River mouth, and were reclaimed to the upper reaches of the Minjiang River Basin. After the population was too high, it was demolished.

The Quanzhou River Basin in central Fujian was historically developed to establish a county only in his later years, and the Zhangzhou River Basin in the south was even more established in the Tang Dynasty. As for Yizhou on the other side, there was no rule. It is legally considered a township or village in Dongzhi County.

If Li Su discovers Zhou Yu's hiding place in the future and destroys Zhou Yu from Dongzhi, then Yizhou will reasonably become a township under a county and a county where his county is a private place.

Of course, if Zhou Yu was willing to do charity, he would develop Yizhou to a larger population before being driven away by Li Su, ensuring that Yizhou plus Dongzhi County had a total population of more than 40,000 households, Li Su could directly pick up his wallet and put it into Yizhou to destroy a county.

These are all later stories. Li Su doesn't know where Zhou Yu fled and has no time to deal with him.

Liu Bei's court also made designs to prevent the duke's descendants from interfering in politics, so they only allowed to check the accounts - of course they were not guarding against Li Su himself. A saint like Li Su was willing to interfere in politics, so the local people would have laughed to death, and the people would sing praises, hoping that Li Shenggong would lead them to further prosperity.

To prevent the duke from interfering in politics, of course, the descendants of Li Su are degenerate and incompetent, who can only plunder and not build farming, and are also blindly commanding.

In addition, the reason why the account check is important is that the nature of the taxes of the duke and the taxes of the county marquis are different.

The county marquis among the marquises are all sealed with the method of "fooding thousands of households in a certain county". After the household rating is set, all the money and grain will belong to the county marquis. It is impossible for a county to have only a few thousand households, and the extra population still has to pay the money and grain to the county and help the county share the part that is paid to the central government.

But the current county magistrates have guaranteed a county or at least several of them to someone. However, the central government of the court cannot allocate money and grain from other counties to support the county's official army, so the county magistrate's money is actually just the surplus of the local finances of a county.

How much is collected every year? The local officials must first eliminate all the salaries and office funds of the county officials, and then eliminate the food and wages of the county garrison, and all military supplies. After these two pieces are reduced, the remaining money and grain belongs to the duke in theory.

Of course, this process is two lines of income and expenditure. That is, the tax collection is collected by the local officials, and the duke is absolutely not allowed to collect it by themselves. After the local officials have allocated it, they will give him the part belonging to the duke.

This is the only way to ensure that "all civil servants and soldiers in the local area still hold the court's salary and rations in nature", so as to be absolutely loyal to the court. If the duke directly collects taxes and gives the money from the civil servants and soldiers to the officers and soldiers, then will the duke raise officials and soldiers? In minutes, the outcome of the state governor and the governor.

The central court of the Han Dynasty has already had a lot of experience in how to prevent the emergence of separatist kingdoms due to the decentralization of financial power.

In addition, apart from official expenses and military expenses, local finances have other expenditures, theoretically, mainly local infrastructure construction, such as water control, bridges and road construction, city walls and government offices, and disaster relief is required when famines occur.

The expenses of these two parts are difficult to define. Liu Bei finally discussed it at the court meeting yesterday, but finally decided not to make rigid regulations on local finances.

The court encouraged the duke to divide a portion of the receivable money and grain to do good deeds, build local governments and provide disaster relief, but not force them.

Anyway, with more local people, more counties can be demolished, and the duke's taxes will be collected in the future, and there will be more algebras to pass on to future generations, which is a win-win situation.

The Duke should learn to spontaneously help the people develop and reproduce under their rule, which can more or less make up for the issue that officials have not considered long-term interests in governing their political achievements since the Qin and Han dynasties.

During the entire imperial period for two thousand years, local officials did not consider long-term interests, which was an unsolvable problem. Because local officials only had one or two terms, he hoped that all the political achievements he had made could be reflected in the years of one or two terms.

Of course, the system of official positions is definitely beneficial to the feudal hereditary system, and most of them are advantages. This is a small flaw, and it is not as good as the hereditary fief.

A fiefdom with hereditary fiefdom is easier to consider the sustainable economic development of his fiefdom for the next one or two hundred years or even longer. After all, it is his own for generations, and he must implement benevolent government to lure people from other places to join us, and he cannot fish out of his own.
Chapter completed!