After successfully restoring the natural danger of Jiange, the Han army's northern line finally took the lead and took the initiative to fight if they want and defend if they want. They can come back with confidence to solve the problems of the two southeastern lines, and solve more important internal affairs problems.

At this time, the Sichuan Basin, the former country of Tianfu, also turned into a ruined mess during several wars. The registered population was moved to the Hedong area in large numbers during the Sima Zhao period. The Jin cavalry led by Shi Bao carried out a series of cleanings near Mianzhu and Luocheng. The population was lost in large numbers, and almost all the houses outside the city were burned down, the people were displaced, and money, grain, and oxen were lost. Many families could not even take out overnight food.

Another even more serious problem is the problem of hidden households. Since Fei Yi was assassinated and died, the government of Shu, which was not governed by the virtuous ministers, has become increasingly corrupt. The Sichuan family, which was once firmly suppressed by the four ministers in Shu, also took the opportunity to stir up trouble, swallowed up and hidden lands in large quantities and evaded taxes and labor service, strengthened itself but weakened the national strength of Shu Han. When Cao Wei destroyed Shu, the Shu family even reported a ridiculous data of less than one million people in Shu. Sima Zhao, who was perfunctorily eager to buy the hearts of the people in Shu, forced Sima Zhao to pinch his nose and accept the bad debt.

As mentioned earlier, when Shu Han was destroyed, the total population reported by the Shu family was 940,000. However, sixteen years later, the world was unified and the Sima family counterattacked and re-inspected the population. The population of Shu, which was once made to give birth to a boy but did not dare to raise, suddenly became 4.34 million! The number of hidden populations of Shu family is evident from this.

It is also because of this that in order to obtain sufficient tax sources and military sources, as early as when he led his army back to Chengdu, Zhang Zhi had already discussed with Xue Rang and other close friends about the important matter of re-censing the population. He also decided to take action with his cheap father-in-law Chang Hong. First, he investigated the hidden population of the Jiangyuan Chang family, the top Shu family in the top Shu family, set an example and also killed the chicken to warn the monkeys, so that other Shu families could see the determination of the Han army to investigate the hidden population.

In this way, an important question was put before Zhang Zhi again, that is, how can we not overstimulate the Shu family, damage their interests too much, and force them to the opposite side of the Han army while trying to investigate the population as much as possible?

At this point, tax reduction and exemption is undoubtedly the best method of both worlds. Zhang Zhi immediately thought of three ways to appease the aristocratic families and win over the hearts of the people. First, the hidden population that has been cleared out will be free from the past and no longer pursue the taxes that have been robbed before the hidden households; second, the money that children aged three to fourteen will be abolished, and children before the age of fifteen will be exempted from taxes; third, the double taxes of the aristocratic families will be reduced to only half of the income, so as to reduce the burden on the aristocratic families and weaken their resistance.

Xue Rang, who had some conservative thoughts, opposed the reduction of taxes for Tian Nu, and felt that doing so would change the ancestral system of the Han Dynasty and reduce fiscal revenue in the future. Zhang Zhi did not think so and said: "The Han Dynasty doubled the taxes for Tian Nu, aristocratic family. In addition to increasing taxes, the purpose of curbing land annexation and preventing the growth of aristocratic families. However, as early as the period of Emperor Huanling, the Yan Han court could no longer control the place, resulting in the aristocratic families hiding their populations and desperately evading taxes. This is a difficult disease. We cannot reverse this trend in a short period of time, and we can only proceed step by step and gradually reverse it."

"On the surface, we are losing money by reducing the taxes of the aristocratic family's Tiannu to only increase their income by 50%. However, after the hidden population is found, each of our population can receive one and a half times taxes. Such an increase is enough to offset the reduction in taxes on the book population, and in fact there will be a large surplus. At the same time, after the population is cleared, we can also obtain enough manpower and military sources to lay the foundation for our next step in regaining Hanzhong and restoring the Central Plains."

"The same goes for the future." Zhang Zhi continued: "The cleared population is registered, and their children and grandchildren will continue to pay taxes when they grow up. It will definitely be more difficult for aristocratic families to turn them into hidden populations, so even in the long run, our taxes will only increase and not decrease."

After careful consideration, he found that Zhang Zhi was right. Xue Rang nodded and said, "Yes, the hidden population of the Shu family is at least twice the real population. If you clear it up, we will collect taxes at one and a half times. We can pay four and a half times the tax. It is indeed much more than the registered population. After the hidden population is registered, it will definitely not be so easy for the aristocratic family to hide it. With these increased taxes, we also have the confidence to exempt the tuition (child tax), encourage the people to have more children, and increase our future taxpayer population."

"Also, I want to exempt Shu from three years of labor service." Zhang Zhi also said: "The labor service in three years will also be subject to a large amount of exemption, especially for families with boys. The labor service in Shu is too heavy. All the county in Ba County gave birth to men but did not raise them. It was forced by this heavy labor service. We must reduce the exemption to the level of the prime minister's time."

"Later General, what should we do about the shipbuilding in Jiangzhou?" Xue Rang asked worriedly: "There is also water conservancy. In the past three years, it is impossible for us to not dredge river channels and build water conservancy?"

"Feeling money to hire workers," Zhang Zhi said without thinking: "In the three years of exemption from corvee service, once the government recruits people to build water conservancy, repair roads, cities, and mines and wells, all wages will be paid according to the market price, and food will be provided at the same time."

Before Zhang Zhi finished speaking, Xue Rang understood Zhang Zhi's idea of ​​making junk food again, and then he smiled and said, "Hou General, then your instant noodles and lunch meat must be able to keep up. If these things cannot keep up, let alone planning to recover Hanzhong and liberation of the Central Plains, we may have problems with money and food even if we want to defend Shu."

"Don't worry, it won't break." Zhang Zhi smiled and added to his heart, "Unless a small pushpin really finds a way to enable the self-destruct program."

"It's almost time, scumbag, I'm about to find it! When this system is found, I'll die together with you, the scumbag!" The system girl gritted her teeth in Zhang Zhi's mind and said, "Also, after returning to Chengdu, this system sincerely wishes you, the scumbag, to get help with pickles and junk food!"

The system girl's crow's mouth finally worked once this time. A few days later, when she returned to Chengdu, before she had time to receive the news of Yong'an's active flag change, Zhang Zhi was most concerned about the regaining junk food reward assistance from important towns in Jiangzhou. As a result, the system girl also made a promise, and Zhang Zhi really got junk food assistance for pickles. When he was still drawing the specific style for the first time, he drew a Fuling pickled cabbage produced by a small counterfeit factory, which sold for more than ten yuan and fifty packs on Taobao.

"In addition," Zhang Zhi said: "I can also let you buy instant noodles, lunch meat and pickled vegetables and candies produced in Shu, and sell them to Dongwu and Jin to make huge profits. As for taxes, they will be charged half of the sales of Shu brocade. At the same time, I will not set up a border market and will not compete with you for this business."

Before Zhang Zhi finished speaking, the heads of the Shu family, such as Chang Hong and Du Xiong, had their eyes lit up, and they rushed to ask: "Hou General, are you really willing to trade instant noodles and lunch meat? Don't set up a border market to occupy it?"

"That's of course." Zhang Zhi smiled and said, "I'm not afraid to tell you the truth. The main reason why I let go of the trade of these things is to use your power to replace these things with necessary military and civilian items such as cloth, silk, pig iron, cattle and horses that are abundant in the Central Plains. The Jin thieves have a deep blood hatred with us, so they will definitely not easily agree to trade with us. The Eastern Wu is still besieging Yong'an and invading Nanzhong, and they will not have the conditions to open border markets in a short period of time."

"So I thought about it. Instead of not selling these good things, it is better to let you make money. As long as you have the ability, you can sell these things to Jindi and Dongwu. I will never stop them, let alone pick up the hairs and draw heavy taxes on you. Of course, the prerequisite is that you must use the new money of the Han Dynasty to buy these things in the official market. We do not collect money from Jindi."

By the way, when he set out from Wei County, Zhang Zhi was ready to never go back, so he brought the new Han army coins into the army. Not long after he successfully recovered Chengdu, Zhang Zhi selected honest officials and organized people to start minting new coins on the spot. In addition, the credit burden laid for the new Han army in Nanzhong, so the Han army had already started to circulate new Han army coins in the territory controlled by the Han army.

Everyone knows how profitable junk food is and how popular it is in Jin and Wu. After hearing Zhang Zhi’s words, representatives of Shu families such as Chang Hong and Du Xiong were of course lit up and rushed to say: “Don’t worry, the general, you must sell it with your new money. At worst, we can do something to transport instant noodles and lunch meat to Jin and Wu to barter and exchange it for supplies to exchange for new money.”

Zhang Zhi smiled and nodded, and appointed his old lackey Ma Feng to thoroughly investigate the major issues of the population. He also named him to start from Jiangyuan. Chang Hong, who was coveting the huge profits of junk food, also agreed immediately, but he had no idea that Zhang Zhi would deduct it from layer by layer in the middle and earn how much profit they had.

Immediately afterwards, the recovery of the Yueli and Hanjia counties and re-opened the main road with Nanzhong, which naturally became the most urgent major event for the Han army at present. Fortunately, the Jin army in these two counties were both weak and there were barbarians in the territory. Even if they fought to the death, they were destined to be unable to cause any storms. Therefore, Zhang Zhi also chose to be polite and then soldiers, and sent two envoys to Yueli and Hanjia with letters to persuade Zhang Yu and Jiao Sheng to surrender, intending to consider using force after the persuasion failed.

During this period, good news came one after another. First of all, it was the good news that Yong'an took the initiative to surrender. This not only allowed the Han army to successfully close the East Gate of Yizhou, but also allowed Zhang Zhi to draw junk food assistance for biscuits when drawing. It was just a pity that Zhang Zhi drew the first biscuits that were famous Yueli Yue biscuits, and the amount of aid was not much.

Then came the Brazilian county. Huang Wo's troops, who retreated directly from the battlefield in Fu County, successfully stopped the Qiao family of the Chongguo country to try to migrate the Brazilian people by relying on the private troops they had left quietly. Then the Han army's partial division led by Cuan Gu also successfully entered Brazil, forcing Qiao Zhou's sons to quickly throw their industries and Tiannu and flee directly with their tribesmen. At the same time, with the help of the Huang family, Cuan Gu also took the Brazilian county seat Langzhong in one fell swoop. It was clear that it was only a matter of time before he captured Hanchang and closed the gate of the Mi Cang Road.

Finally, there was the Nanzhong side. After a while, through the remote mountain road in Zhuti County, the messenger sent by Zhu Xiang and Zhang Rong and others finally got in touch with the main force of the Han army. Not only did he tell Zhang Zhi that the Han army had successfully defended the marching, but he also introduced that Chen Jiao had given birth to a son for Zhang Zhi in Wei County. Of course, Zhang Zhi was overjoyed when he heard the news. Everyone congratulated the Han army. It is said that Zhang Zhi had revived the Han Dynasty and had a successor.

After being happy, Zhang Zhi immediately discovered Yin You's place, and after a little calculation, he said: "Oh, Mo Sheng's errand will definitely be even more difficult. We failed in the attacks between the two groups of Eastern Wu. Now Sun Hao and Lu Kang are the only ones who are furious and will definitely vent their anger on Mo Sheng's head. Mo Sheng persuades Eastern Wu to join us in a good alliance, which will definitely be even more difficult to succeed."

"What are you afraid of?" Zhao Quan said indifferently: "If you don't form an alliance, you won't form an alliance. At worst, we will continue to fight on two fronts. Anyway, it's not that we haven't fought."

"You can't think so." Zhang Zhi shook his head and said, "Although the dog thieves in the Eastern Wu are unreliable, if we can reach an alliance with them, we can greatly reduce the garrisons of the Eastern Wu, so that we can concentrate our main forces to launch the Northern Expedition, clench into a fist and hit talents. At the same time, after continuing the alliance with the Eastern Wu, we can definitely obtain the cloth and pig iron that the Eastern Wu produces in business, improve our people's livelihood and military supplies, and allow the people in Shu to free up their hands to concentrate on farming and combat preparations, and reduce the labor consumption in other aspects. What we lack the most now is the population."

"What the latter general said is that no matter how unreliable the Eastern Wu is, we must fight for them and must not force them to the Jin thieves." Chen Can also said: "Otherwise, once Jin and Wu join forces, even if we are not attacked by them, we will definitely have no strength to fight them out, and we will only be trapped in the Sichuan Tianzhuo."

"What should I do?" Xue Rang said: "The Eastern Wu is now angry. Even if it is for the sake of face, the Eastern Wu will definitely not easily agree to continue the alliance with us. Mo Sheng is too honest and not good at adapting. I am afraid that he can't adapt to the situation and let the famous tyrant Sun Hao stop his anger and agree to continue the alliance with us?"

"The best way is to send another messenger who is good at maneuvering to help Mo Sheng." Chen Can suggested: "After arriving in the Eastern Wu, you can adapt to the situation, or you can bribe the important officials of the Eastern Wu, and try to make the alliance acquaintance."

Zhang Zhi nodded slowly and asked again: "Who should I send to help Mo Sheng?"

Chen Can frowned because Chen Can also remembered that although the Han army recruited many talents after the revival of Shuzhong, they all lacked experience and their talents had not been reflected. No matter who they were sent, they were sure of this. At the same time, other civil servants who came from Nanzhong had no diplomatic experience. Letting them serve as deputy to Mo Sheng was clearly a rush to put them on the shelves and it was extremely difficult to succeed.

It was also coincidental that just when Zhang Zhi and Chen Can were both worried about the choice of this person, a personal soldier suddenly came to the hall and said, "Report to the Empress General, General Cuan Gu sent Su Ding, the Chief of the Shu County County, to return to Chengdu, and sent good news to the General. Our army had successfully surrendered the Hanchang defenders of the Jin bandits, and basically controlled the entire county in Brazil. The Chief of the Empress Su was outside the door and asked the General to summon him."
Chapter completed!