Chapter 302: Removing the Fire From Under the Pot

"The first one is too radical, the third one is too long, and the second one is quite appropriate, but it also has many problems."

In Fan Tower, Fan Zhongyan listened to Zhao Jun's thoughts and raised objections.

Zhao Jun said while picking up vegetables: "I also think the second one is the most appropriate. You should tell me what the specific problems are first. This kind of thing should be done step by step. If you encounter problems, you can solve them."

"The most unreasonable thing is the ban on land sales. Landowners across the country will probably rise up against this. I'm afraid it won't work."

Fan Zhongyan shook his head and said.

The reason why land annexation was serious in the Song Dynasty was that there were no restrictions on land annexation from the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China. In the past, the approach of various dynasties was to prohibit land transactions in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China.

For example, this is true for the well field system that began in the Western Zhou Dynasty, the farmland system during the Western Han Dynasty, the land occupation system implemented in the Jin Dynasty, and the equal land system from the Southern and Northern Dynasties to the early Tang Dynasty.

However, this is usually the case at the beginning. When time passes, in the middle and late dynasties, the system will be broken. Various nobles, officials, landlords, and powerful men will occupy the land one after another, thus forming the fact that land annexation will be serious in the middle and late dynasties.

On the contrary, the Song Dynasty was really weird. It did not prohibit buying and selling from the beginning, which led to serious land annexation in the early days of the dynasty. Under such circumstances, it is a miracle among miracles that the Northern and Southern Song Dynasties could still live for more than three hundred years.

"The Song Dynasty was full of shit. Which dynasty didn't ban land sales in the early days? During Wang Mang's period, he even dared to nationalize the country's land. If Lao Zhao forgets it, I won't scold him this time."

Zhao Jun originally wanted to scold brothers Zhao Kuangyin and Zhao Guangyi, but thinking that Zhao Guangyi could scold and Zhao Kuangyin was his direct ancestor, he could only keep his mouth shut in the end.

Who let the ancestors fail?

Obviously in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, Zhao Kuangyin was able to carry out land reform and improve the situation of land annexation.

But in order to pursue the national policy of emphasizing civility over military affairs, he first asked a large number of his military officers and nobles to hand over their military power and go home to buy land for their retirement. He also elevated the status of literati and allowed them to legally occupy land.

For a time, civil servants and military generals wanted to carve up the land. Since the court could not stop them from carving up the land, their relatives and interest groups began to follow suit and started a second carve-up.

As a result, less than a hundred years later, powerful powers from all walks of life followed suit. After three partitions, there were very few farmers left in the country, and land annexation was serious.

In the final analysis, Zhao Kuangyin believed that the generals of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms were too terrible, and made concessions in order to appease them, which led to this opening and precedent. The court no longer cared about land annexation, and people had a carnival of land enclosures.

So Zhao Kuangyin has Zhao Kuangyin's difficulties, but Zhao Jun doesn't want to understand his difficulties.

But insulting the collateral ancestor Zhao Guangyi was okay, but insulting the direct ancestor was still a bit contrary to the ancestors of the Han people who respected their ancestors, so they did not criticize him after all.

"Let's think of a solution first."

Fan Zhongyan said.

"What's your idea?"

Zhao Jun asked back.

Fan Zhongyan thought for a while and said, "Cancel the prohibition on land sales."

"After cancellation, they may not necessarily sell it to the government."

"But if the government's purchase price is higher, wouldn't they be able to buy it?"

"You are afraid that you want to engage in power-for-money transactions across the country, collude with government officials and businessmen, and make the court pay high prices to buy land."

Zhao Jun shook his head and said: "This is not a problem that can be solved by simple supervision."

Land sales were originally prohibited, and corruption would definitely occur during government buybacks, but it was still controllable.

Because during the last national census and land survey, various censors and statistics bureaus had already checked and registered the land.

Land is divided into three categories: excellent, good and bad. When repurchasing it, it can be traded directly according to the quality plus the current market price.

Once the ban on buying and selling is lifted, there will be a lot of room for maneuver.

For example, find someone to raise the price, or large landowners continue to purchase land among themselves, holding the entire county's land in their hands, driving up land prices, and forcing the government to pay high prices.

Just like buying a house, there are obviously not many people living in a community, but the real estate speculators buy the entire community and drive up the price. Aren't the people who suffer the same?

Therefore, the ban on land sales is the same concept as the housing restriction order, forcing landlords to sell land to the government at a fair price.

If you really follow what Fan Zhongyan said, it would be a bad thing.

However, General Fan also had reasons and objected: "I think the reform should be arranged within the existing framework. As I said myself, if we take too big a step, we will easily get into trouble. Directly banning land transactions does not mean forcing the landlords to do so." Are they rebelling?"

"No, my head hurts. I'm doing a dojo inside a snail shell. In this case, there's only one last option."

Zhao Jun rubbed his temples.

Fan Zhongyan wondered: "What can we do?"

"Kill someone."

Zhao Jun shrugged: "What else can be done?"

"Killing again?"

Fan Zhongyan said speechlessly: "Are you addicted to killing?"

Even though it seems that Zhao Jun has not led troops to fight in recent years, in fact he only has more lives on hand than Fan Zhongyan, not less.

First of all, we have to clean up the evil forces before taking office. Kaifeng Prefecture Wuyoudong, Guifanlou and other evil forces have been wiped out. I don’t know how many people were beheaded outside the East City. It is estimated that there are eight thousand heads if not ten thousand.

Secondly, he patrolled the country and executed every corrupt official he saw. He was merciless and killed hundreds of officials involved in the Huainan disaster relief corruption case alone.

Finally, there was the military corruption case last year. He killed almost half of hundreds of generals. Then came the purge of the army. Thousands of middle and lower-level officers, as well as tens of thousands of soldiers involved in the case, died, were exiled, and were imprisoned.

It can be said that Zhao Jun killed 30,000 to 40,000 people and sent hundreds of thousands of people to prison. It can be said that he killed more enemies on the battlefield than Fan Zhongyan. Much more.

So why isn’t it so influential?

Because everything Zhao Jun did was reasonable and legal and within the normal framework.

All dynasties have fought against corruption. Zhao Kuangyin also executed thousands of corrupt officials, exiled their families, and killed tens of thousands of people. He did not see anyone using this as an issue in later generations.

Therefore, unless there is a political purpose like the four major cases in the early Ming Dynasty, abnormal cases will attract the attention of the world. Apart from ordinary crackdowns on crime and corruption, isn't that what wise monarchs have often done in the past dynasties? Why write a big book about it?

So in summary, what Zhao Jun caught was legal compliance, and with the support of the main civil servant group represented by Zhao Zhen and the Constitutional Yuan, this was possible.

Those who write history books in this way have nothing to criticize.

If Zhao Jun had ulterior motives for committing murders for political purposes, he would probably be included in the historical records and be written down in a big book.

"I'm not that crazy yet."

Zhao Jun shook his head and said: "But if we follow the restrictions you gave us, wouldn't we have to kill people to solve it?"

"Why? Tell me."

Fan Zhongyan asked hurriedly.

"Let me ask you, is it the law of the Song Dynasty to not restrict personal freedom, not to buy or sell people, and to completely abolish slavery?"

Zhao Jun asked rhetorically.

"yes."

Fan Zhongyan nodded.

There is no doubt about this, the Tang Dynasty recognized slavery.

"Tang Lv Shu Yi" emphasizes that slaves are humble and have the same legal status as livestock, and intermarriage between good and lowly people is also prohibited.

But in the Song Dynasty, starting from the first year of Jingyou, Emperor Renzong of the Song Dynasty, he issued an edict to completely abolish slavery. Even the titles have changed. In the past, slaves were called slaves and maidservants, and later they were called human servants and female servants.

At that time, it was stipulated that the system of good and bad people should be abolished. Businessmen, tenant farmers, slaves and other untouchables in the traditional sense were all registered as households. The contract was no longer a sale contract, but an employment contract. All employed persons were free citizens and could resign at any time. power.

In the Tang Dynasty, a master punished a slave at will without any consequences. A slave was beaten to death for no reason and made to work as a punishment for a year, and even paid for the trouble. If there is a reason, there is not even a punishment.

This resulted in a large number of lynching cases in which masters killed slaves because the cost of crime was too low.

In the Song Dynasty, at the beginning of the Song Dynasty, innocent slaves were killed and exiled for three thousand miles.

During the Zhenzong period of the Song Dynasty, the situation was further aggravated. Even if you privately killed guilty men or female envoys, serious cases would be sentenced to death by the government.

By the Southern Song Dynasty, murderers who committed murder were punishable by death regardless of whether the other party was guilty or not.

certainly.

Except for officials and dignitaries.

Chen Zhizhong killed his maid, but was dismissed as prime minister.

During the reign of Emperor Yingzong of Song Dynasty, official Liu Zhu scratched his servant's face with a knife, but was dismissed from office.

However, the powerful only enjoyed immunity from the death penalty and were often dismissed from office once discovered. This shows that the Song Dynasty basically eliminated the slavery system for a short time.

It was not until the Yuan Dynasty that this thing was restored, and finally after the founding of our country, when Tibet was recovered and serfdom was abolished, the deep-rooted diseases that had plagued China for thousands of years were finally eradicated.

It is undeniable that the Song Dynasty had legal regulations, but the people at the bottom did not understand the law, and were restricted by landlords with contracts. The living environment was still no different from that of slaves before the Tang Dynasty.

Zhao Jun said: "Since I can't promulgate new laws to deal with the issue of land annexation, then there is no problem if I strictly abide by the previous laws."

"How can you obey the law?"

Fan Zhongyan asked.

"Starting from this year, bring all the tenants of the landlords to me. Either build canals, build official fields, resettle the tenants to official fields, or build roads, dams, and reservoirs, or let the landlords use their fields. nobody."

Zhao Jun smiled and said: "The landlords want to use contracts to restrict tenants. Sorry, the Song Dynasty does not allow restrictions on personal freedom. If such a phenomenon exists, then it is a problem with the government. I have to use a knife to force the officials below. , Those who are officials have to fight the landlords with knives, this is legal. "

"It's legal, so you can be cruel."

Fan Zhongyan had nothing to say. This was really within the scope of legality. The imperial court was rich and hired people to work. Moreover, the law stipulated that everyone was a free citizen. Contracts could be suspended and personal freedom could not be restricted. So the government could indeed arrest people. They were all taken away to build infrastructure.

"The other thing is to reduce the burden on the people. I think starting from this year, since the government conscripts the people to work, it is to serve as corvees. Serving as corvees is to do things for the country, and it cannot delay the people's own lives."

Zhao Jun touched his chin and said: "So the government stipulates that during the period of service, interest can be stopped on any debt owed. This should be reasonable."

"Then doesn't this harm the interests of the landowners? They are capable?"

Fan Zhongyan raised objections.

"In this case, for anyone who is willing to participate in the government's infrastructure construction, the government will repay their debts, but they must transfer the contract to the government. This is regarded as the government recruiting people, and they will become tenants of the government in the future, and the land rent will be much lower than that of the landlords. "

Zhao Jun had another fantastic idea.

In fact, he was not the first to do this, because during the Northern Song Dynasty, natural disasters occurred all over the country, and high taxes caused people to go bankrupt one after another. They were forced to buy land from landlords and voluntarily became slaves of landlords.

But the court did not allow slavery, so there were even cases where the court and local officials redeemed people from landlords.

For example, in July of the second year of Chunhua, Zhao Guangyi issued an order to "order the hungry people in the border states of Shaanxi Province to send men and women into nearby tribes to be redeemed by the officials." In the third year of Dazhong Xiangfu, Song Zhenzong also issued an edict: "The year before last, Shaanxi Province If the people are hungry or have a son, the officials will buy and redeem their homes."

In other years such as the first year of the Ming Dynasty, the eighth year of Qingli, the first year of Longxing in the Southern Song Dynasty, etc., once a large-scale natural disaster occurred, causing the people to go bankrupt and work as slaves for the rich, there are many historical records of the government redeeming them back.

It's just that in the past, this kind of thing only appeared in a small number of disaster-stricken areas. Now if the entire Song Dynasty redeemed slaves and helped tenants and slaves pay off their debts, I'm afraid the financial expenditure would be very large.

Fan Zhongyan said worriedly: "There are countless slaves and tenants across the country. Does the government have enough money to redeem them?"

"Just take it step by step."

Zhao Jun said: "The purpose of the government in bringing them here is not to set them free, but to let them work. By building canals and reservoirs, more farmland can be reclaimed. If the government has more fields, there will be people to work. Landlords There are still so many fields and no one is working, so the final say must be returned to the government. "

"Well, I understand what you mean. You want to transfer the debts of the tenants to the government. The tenants will have to work to repay the debts to the government instead of repaying the debts to the original landlords. Although the landlords occupy good land, they can't. Is the government trying to make their fields deserted?”

"Yes, there is a lot of barren land all over the country in the Song Dynasty. It's just that due to insufficient water conservancy facilities, thousands of miles of barren land cannot be turned into thousands of miles of fertile farmland. If they annex the land, let's start over again and create a lot of arable land."

"This is a good idea, but I don't know how much it will cost."

Fan Zhongyan smiled bitterly.

The landlords obviously had the best land in the Song Dynasty in their hands, but they tried their best to rebuild a large number of facilities and reclaim new land, which was simply unnecessary.

But it seems that there is no other idea besides this method. After all, if they are robbed openly, it will only cause the landlords to rebel one after another.

And if they do this, the landlords will never think that the government is competing with them for manpower.

After all, they could not resist the government's imposition of corvee labor, and even the landowners had to spend money to pay for the corvee labor. Therefore, it was reasonable and reasonable for the court to do this, and they could not fault it.

When the frogs were boiled in warm water, they found that they were short of manpower. All their young men had been confiscated by the government and would not be returned to them. When the fields below were uncultivated, it was already too late to regret it. By then, they could only hold their noses and admit it. The fact that the land in his hands was rotten and then sold to the government at a low price.

"This move is called removing the firepower from under the cauldron."

Zhao Jun smiled and said: "That is to say, the Song Dynasty can do it now if it has money and food. If it were in other dynasties, such as the situation in the late Ming Dynasty when there was no money and food, the only choice would be to use the knife and issue a massacre. But even so, We estimate that we will have to kill a lot of people. For example, in land sales and population exchanges, there will inevitably be a lot of corrupt officials and landowners who are unwilling to surrender. "

"Are you going to kill these people?"

"yes."

"It's estimated that a lot of people will be killed."

"Compared to the Holocaust, it's a small amount."

"Too."

Fan Zhongyan turned his head and looked out the window, muttering to himself: "It's better to cry as a family than to cry all the way."

I have updated it in the past few days, but the number of words in the first update is still quite a lot. Mainly because I have a cold, the weather has changed so much, and I am not in a good state. Some friends said that my main and branch lines are confusing, but I don’t think so. Because the main line has always been reform, the protagonist has already gone through four reforms. The first time was to reform the officialdom system, the second time was to rectify the official system by passing the law, the third time was to reduce taxes and recuperate by reducing taxes, and the fourth time was to deal with the three redundant issues. Everything else is a branch line and a process of paving the way for reform.

Now it is the fifth reform, which solves the problem of land annexation and begins to increase the population.

There will be a sixth and seventh time in the future.

This is really an exaggeration to break the Song Dynasty. Other dynasties can only solve the problem once or twice, but the protagonist has to work hard so many times, step by step, it is really difficult.