: Two steps to take a step back

Liu Bei and Li Su's monarch and ministers feasted each other at night, and Li Su didn't get up and leave.

The next day, Liu Bei sorted out his ideas and roughly divided the three gains he gained from last night's chat:

Regarding how to enthrone the saints and how to sort out the relationship between the emperor and Confucianism, we can start immediately.

For example, the two measures of "no sages allowed during their lifetime" and "the palace examination should be added to the imperial examination, the emperor's personal interview session" can be quickly finalized and completed, but a matter of thought can be resolved.

Li Su’s other suggestions are long-term solutions for slow medicine and slow treatment, and there is no way to find a way to implement it at the moment. He can only think about it first, and then put it aside for the time being and not worry about it.

I sorted out the three types of gains I talked about, and both types were removed, and finally there was a pragmatic part that I could work hard on in the next few years:

How to promote the unfinished reforms as specifically as possible in your lifetime.

How to solve the external problems that the Han still faces, and completely complete the reconstruction of the Han territory recognition.

...

Two days after the private banquet, the official ceremony was held in a blink of an eye. Liu Bei also took advantage of the New Year to talk about many of this year's ideas, especially some of the things he and Li Su had just figured out after the private banquet.

Let the ministers work hard to discuss, speak freely, and see how to refine and prioritize.

There is no need to elaborate on the process of the court discussion. In short, many important officials in the court have noticed a change in the wind:

As the Prime Minister returned to the court for two years on behalf of the Tianzhang, His Majesty seemed to change his previous administrative style of "restoring and working hard to repay debts".

After all, the Prime Minister not only brought plans to His Majesty, but also confidence. The popularity of rye and giant vegetables can easily make the emperor's hallucination that the prosperous age will come sooner. The discovery of gold and silver mines overseas will further alleviate the emperor's estimate of financial difficulties.

In the past two years, the court may have made great efforts to the barbarians who are potentially threatening to all sides, or they may have greater investment in geographical discovery and exploration.

In short, many people interpret this transformation as His Majesty’s absolute trust in the Prime Minister.

If the Prime Minister doesn't come back, he can continue to play music and dance every day, and he will be in power.

Some people interpret this transformation as His Majesty wants to play the role of Wen Jing and Emperor Wu alone,

While he ascended the throne as emperor in his thirties, he was still young and strong when he took office. He personally completed both steps of enriching the people and strengthening the country, and did not leave too much trouble for his descendants.

No matter what the truth is, the era of stable finances is probably going to pass.

Of course, radicals like Fazheng and Liu Ba are eager to try.

Pragmatic factions like Lu Su and Zhuge Jin are impartial, but out of trust in the wiseness of the emperor and the prime minister, they are still willing to believe that they can make the best decision.

As for some officials who are honest and financially conservative, they are inevitably worried. Of course, most of these people are not bad at starting points, but they are used to the virtue of frugality. They will persuade the emperor if he spends more money on anything.

After the scattered court, many officials who only know how to calculate small accounts were talking:

"According to the planning of the imperial court a few years ago, the coupons issued by the previous years of war with Yuan Cao were enough for the world's industrial and commercial workers to use Zhangwu's sixteenth or seventeenth year before they could completely recover it?"

"Even if the Prime Minister and Zhuge Kongming later vigorously developed industry and commerce in the three coastal states of Qingxuyang, Qing, Kanto, and Qing, to dry the sea into salt, expand shipbuilding, sea transportation, and expand overseas tax sources, the coupons will be recycled until the end of this year before all the commercial taxes will be recovered."

"Your Majesty and the Prime Minister cannot wait for an extra year or two to completely recover it, or even spend a surplus or two years of wealthy life, and then use your savings to do those big things? This is addicted to debts, so you have to hurry up and borrow new debts to do things."

Many simple officials sighed and hated when they thought of the court's debt deficit.

Fortunately, during the first month of the year, Liu Bei did not solve the mystery and did not make any moves rashly. It can be seen that he is also very cautious and has to spend enough time thinking carefully.

...

The time soon entered February and March. Because of the busy spring farming for two months, the court's internal affairs focused on persuading farmers and did not disturb the people. If there was anything, we would discuss it first and do not rush to release it.

Li Su also spent the past two months to re-familiarize the government affairs and financial data details of the imperial court center, and to make a more stable plan after knowing it.

Seeing the end of March, Liu Bei and Li Su also roughly figured out the subsequent pace of advancement.

Liu Bei decided that the central idea of ​​governance in the past two years is to "take military advance and cover up reform."

The further deepening of reforms in the imperial examination and finance, and optimizing details are of course also important.

For example, in terms of money, the specific calculation and optimization of industrial and commercial tax must be implemented.

It is also very important whether land tax can gradually change from a cap tax to a real "tax of acres" in the future.

The real tax-type tax system in history did not mature until the two tax laws of the late Tang Dynasty. The current agricultural tax system in the Han Dynasty still remained in the rent-and-meaning adjustment method of the early Tang Dynasty. Adding the "equality-for-all tax discount" pieced together by Li Su, there is still a certain gap with the two tax laws.

As for whether the imperial examination system can be further expanded from the current "referred candidates from each county and unified examination at the state level" to "national unified examination admission", or at least first "admission to the north and west", further increasing the difficulty of local bidding and reducing the transfer of interests generated by the juren, this is the top priority for the long-term stability of the Han Dynasty in the future.

However, if you don’t have the opportunity to re-invigorate and deepen reforms, it is still easy to be opposed by court officials and resisted by local forces that have grown up again.

After all, reforms always touch people's interests, and whether it is money or official, it is enough to arouse people to take risks.

The world is completely peaceful and there is no civil unrest. It has been more than six years since many people will gradually lose their memory and forget the determination and strength of the court.

Liu Bei was not worried that someone would not be able to stop the military after causing trouble. Even if it really started, it would be just like the remnants of Qingyan’s counter-immigration in 204, and military conquest was good. After all, all the generals of Zhongxing were still there, and Liu Bei had the absolute sword in his hand.

However, the world is peaceful after all. Even if it can be suppressed, it will leave some stains on the rule. It is best to start over and not resist.

At this time, the best choice is to show your muscles and show them to the outside world before the reform. Remind the local powerful families who have passed the six-year period of forgetting, and how terrifying the military force of the imperial court is.

Then, with the power of foreign military victory, we will follow the trend and push for further reforms.

It is also fully utilized to make the "urgent power" of the wartime system. If many temporary measures of "urgent power" are found to be useful, they will not be changed back after the war is over. Isn't it beautiful to directly solidify the established facts and turn them into a long-term system?

Of course, the complementary complement of foreign military strikes and internal reforms can also be another form of manifestation-

Not only does the reform require the support of military prestige, but before launching foreign troops, the reform can also be used as bait to force court officials and powerful families to choose one, and "the two evils are the least of the right."

Similar to first making a rumor that “the court will implement XXX reform this year”, look at the local reaction,

If the opposition is fierce, then follow the trend and say, "The purpose of the imperial court to implement the XXX reform is only to raise resources for the Northern Expedition grassland. If the Northern Expedition can be solved without reform, then the law will not be changed for now." Use this bait to induce everyone to accept the latter condition.

This idea was also thought out by Li Su in the past few months, and he suggested that Liu Bei, who also felt it made sense after hearing this.

The source of Li Su's strategy is obviously to learn from the original historical process of the Xianbei people who moved south to Luoyang during the reign of Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty.

All the middle school history textbooks were taught. Tuoba Hong was opposed to the implementation of the Chinese reform in order to move the capital to Luoyang. So he did not mention moving the capital for now, but only said that he would fight to unify the Southern Dynasty.

After leading troops south from Pingcheng, the road to Luoyang was blocked by rain and the officials and soldiers were in great pain. He advised him to stop the southern expedition, and then he followed the flow and said, "This time he went south to work hard and mobilized the troops. He always had to do something. If he couldn't go south, he would move the capital to Luoyang."

Isn’t this just using “first create a certain fact” and then force the opponent to take a step back, most of the art of compromise is like this.

It was nothing more than Liu Bei and Li Su's place. The military excuse changed from the southern expedition to the northern expedition, and the Han agricultural civilization and the grassland nomadic civilization changed their roles.

...

On March 21st and May 5th, Liu Bei and Li Su took the lead in performing the first prelude scene.

Li Su directly brought the prototype idea of ​​the "tax with a mu" method during the two tax laws of the Tang Dynasty to the court for discussion.

It is suggested that the court begin to consider "taking advantage of the fact that the reconciliation is not long before today, the population is sparse, the people who have farmed the land, and the successful achievements of land inspections in previous years, so as to truly realize the actual land possession, the less land is less, and the more land is more food."

Li Su's suggestion was like a second boot landing, causing a wave of waves from all forces that had been worried for a month or two.

Many people can't say that this system is wrong. After all, in terms of fairness and principle, this should be the case, and Li Su is right.

However, the opposition has many reasons, mainly because it believes that the current technical conditions cannot be taxed in this way. The collection cost is too high and it is unpaid, and there is too much room for fraud, which can easily lead to tax officials becoming more and more bullying the weak and tying the people.

It is better to still follow the one-size-fits-all approach of the old law. Regardless of whether each household actually has 100 acres of land, the theoretical value of 100 acres of land will be used as the tax starting point for 30 taxes.

The court discussed this matter all day, but in the end, nothing was found, but he temporarily stopped Li Su's proposal.

At the meeting, only Fa Zheng and Liu Ba knew how to play, so they played the offensive role who strongly supported the Prime Minister. Anyway, they were used to it.

Five days after that, undercurrents in the court were surging, and they all had various speculations about why the prime minister suddenly mentioned this matter.

Fortunately, Li Su didn't need them to continue guessing, because five days later, after the 26th day of the court discussion, they took the initiative to reveal the answer to the mystery.

Liu Bei personally approved the court meeting, feeling that the Prime Minister’s statement five days ago was a bit confusing, and the truth was good, but it seemed that it was difficult to implement it, so the court officials took a stable plan.

After hearing the emperor's statement, the representatives of the landlord class breathed a sigh of relief.

But Liu Bei then proposed that he planned to further integrate the Hebei region this year to prevent the Wuhuan tribes that supported the remnants of the high-ranking officials and the Yuan family, as well as the Xianbei in Bingzhou and northern Hetao.

Therefore, we plan to dig canals in Hebei area to connect the existing natural river channels and strengthen the logistics transportation of military rations between Hebei and Bingzhou.

This is not to "take the initiative to provoke a war", but to "prevent the Xianbei and Wuhuan invasion, and Yuan Ni is waiting for an opportunity to harm the people." The Han Dynasty was the party that "defends the country and defends the country as a legitimate defense", and it is definitely not to be a military force and privately provoke borders.

The reason why the prime minister proposed to carry out agricultural tax reform was not to raise money for these projects. Considering that the court had previously had the problem of "opposing the court's expansion of industrial and commercial taxes and over-issuing bonds".

In order to share His Majesty's worries, the Prime Minister also asked His Majesty to "not issue new debts without paying off their old debts," so he had to start with the agricultural tax.

After all, when Sang Hongyang was a member of Sang Hongyang, Sang Hongyang said to Emperor Wu of Han that the tax increase in industry and commerce is for the purpose of "the people do not increase taxes and the country is free." Taxes are for industry and commerce and people, and tuition is for land and agriculture.

If the country has difficulties, it needs to spend more money. If it does not come from industry and commerce, it must come from agriculture. You can only choose one of two.

After being tossed by this, the "frugal and stable people" in the court stopped talking. The two evils were the least. Let His Majesty go back and issue bonds in advance, regardless of whether the old debts have been paid off.

Issuing industrial and commercial bonds is always easier to be accepted by families than reforming agricultural taxes.

In addition, many people did not even dare to mention the previous initiative of "opposing strengthening arms and opposing digging canals". They were so confused that they were played by the emperor and the prime minister. They took one step back and made two steps, and in fact they still steadily moved the policy forward a lot.

...

In the end, the court decided that when the country had already issued an over-issued industrial and commercial tax invoice bonds, and there was still a final payment worth about 7 billion yuan,

This year, we will start issuing new bonds. The scale of new bonds should be at least 3 billion yuan more than the old bonds, so as to achieve the goal of "borrowing new debts to repay old debts", while using the extra part to build canals, strengthen the armament of the front line, and start conducting complete military training for soldiers again.

The project volume of the canal is not very large, because there are no mountains on the Hebei Plain and the terrain is very flat.

The soil in Hebei is also very suitable for excavation, which is well known. After all, Yuan Shaojun was known as "the best in the world in the cave", and the Hebei Plain was originally the most suitable environment for tunnel warfare.
Chapter completed!