My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 584 Don't sing high-sounding slogans, the best is to follow the actual situation
From what Liu Bei heard from Zhuge Liang, it seemed that he was already planning a tax and financial reform that would achieve "both this and that."

It will be able to better sort out the financial resources of our camp in the next few years without causing excessive changes to the Han Dynasty's laws that would affect the interests of too many people, or causing the people of Jingbei and Chengdu Plain to wait and see and become alienated.

If such a good thing really existed, Liu Bei would certainly support it unconditionally.

Lu Su, who had originally made a kind reminder, naturally stopped objecting when he saw Zhuge Liang was so confident.

He was just trying to fill in the gaps, not to compete with the factions in later generations or oppose just for the sake of opposing.

Nowadays, the discussion atmosphere within Liu Bei's camp is still very good, and everyone can focus on the matter rather than the person.

After their attitudes were initially unified, Liu Bei signaled Zhuge Liang to continue and outline the details.

Zhuge Liang then spoke eloquently: "Regarding why and how our military's taxation and finances should be rectified in the next one or two years, my brother and I have occasionally discussed this issue over the past month.

I have noticed a problem. Since the second half of the previous year, when our army entered Sichuan to assist Liu Zhang in resisting Cao Cao's bandits, the attitudes of the scholars and people in various counties of Yizhou towards our army have actually been very complicated.

On the one hand, our army promoted benevolence and righteousness and promoted Linyi rice, allowing all parts of Yizhou to produce more grain. It also increased trade, allowing all kinds of convenient and novel things to gradually become popular in the Chengdu Plain, all of which benefited the people.

On the other hand, Yizhou was rugged and the roads were difficult to travel. During the period when our army was helping in the war, the people not only had to pay taxes, but also had to organize people to transport the food. Most of the collection and transportation was done by Liu Zhang's army for us.

But in Jiangzhou, we still have to do some water transportation. On the land route, after Liu Zhang's army transported to Fucheng and Zitong, our army also had to arrange for the transportation of local people. Over the past year or so, we have done our best to ensure that there are no shortages on the front line. The people have suffered a lot from corvée labor, and some even fled to avoid corvée labor.

It’s just that during wartime, we have to do our best and cannot take care of other things. For the time being, we can only choose the lesser of two evils. Now that the war has stopped, we naturally have to free up our hands to solve these accumulated problems. Come up with some long-term solutions to alleviate the suffering of the people from corvée labor.”

Although Zhuge Liang did not yet propose a solution, his remarks at least roughly clarified the problems accumulated over the past two years and the current shortcomings.

During the Battle of Hanzhong, Liu Bei's army seemed to have won a glorious victory, but in fact, it also exposed many problems, mainly in terms of logistics consumption. However, these problems were not as obvious as the victory or defeat on the battlefield, so they were not noticed by many people.

At that time, Zhuge Liang had to coordinate the overall military supplies and ensure that there were enough soldiers and food, which made him grow tremendously. In history, during the Battle of Hanzhong, the entire territory of Yizhou entered a state of general mobilization with "men fighting and women transporting". In this life, Liu Bei's family background was a little thicker, and Liu Zhang had more accumulated inventory. Although it was not to that extent, the people were still very hard-working.

Liu Bei and Pang Tong were in Yizhou at the time and were aware of these issues, but they did not coordinate logistics and their understanding was not that deep.

As for Guan Yu, Lu Su and others, they were not in Guanxi at the time, and some had never been to Sichuan in their entire lives and had seen the difficulties of the road to Shu, so it was difficult for them to understand. This cannot be blamed on Lu Su, but mainly because the ancients' geographical knowledge and cognition were very limited by their personal experience.

Even if a person reads a lot, even if he has read the Classic of Mountains and Seas and the Classic of Waterways, it is still difficult to appreciate the loss of the written records unless he has visited Sichuan to see it with his own eyes. In the era of written records, the ability to summarize geography was still too superficial, and there were no photos at that time.

Zhuge Jin, on the other hand, had a wealth of geographical knowledge in his previous life. He had traveled to many places before crossing over, seen famous mountains and rivers, and was familiar with history books. Even though he had never been to Sichuan in this life, it was still easy for him to understand. After reuniting with his second brother this time, they talked about their experiences and lessons in this regard many times in more than a month, inspiring each other and gaining a lot.

At this moment, Liu Bei was reminded of the past and nodded sympathetically: "I can empathize with the hardships of that time. It was really difficult for the people of Yizhou to transport grain. So what methods did you come up with to alleviate their suffering? Can this strategy be applied to other states and counties?"

Zhuge Liang immediately responded, "I have some humble opinions, and today is a good time to express them for everyone to discuss. After discussing with my brother, I think that the people of Yizhou have always liked to live in seclusion and are unwilling to work for the court. The main reason is that the terrain is too dangerous, and the court's levy and taxation do not fully consider their transportation difficulties.

For example, when collecting grain, not only did they have to hand over so much grain locally, but they also had to transport it to a designated place. Although the grain collected in a county was often only delivered within the county, or sent to a neighboring county at most, they would not be transported thousands of miles away. However, given the ruggedness of Shu, the loss of hundreds of miles was enough for the people to spend at least twice as much energy and material resources.

After discussing with my brother, I felt that if we could allow the people of Yizhou to focus on producing goods and bear less of the pain of transportation, or let someone be responsible for transportation without paying taxes, with a clear division of labor, we would not increase the burden on the people, nor delay the farming season, and reduce the number of unemployed people.

Then, the court could set a separate discount standard for transportation capacity to be included in corvée and taxes. This would allow people in certain places to choose between paying grain, paying money, and performing corvée. For example, if the annual land tax is doubled, corvée will be exempted for the year. Or if the tax is paid five times, both grain and corvée can be exempted.

In addition, if it is a county in a mountainous area that needs to transport grain taxes by land, a price can be set, and the grain paid that year can be deducted from the corvée labor for that year if it is transported 200 miles by land. No matter what means the local grain transporters use or whether the people organize themselves, as long as the grain is transported to the place designated by the court and the distance is covered, they will not have to perform additional service that year.

For water transport, a price can also be set, but generally water transport is at least ten times cheaper than land transport. In that case, the grain collected in that year can be transported 3,000 miles by water to offset the corvée labor service. If there are obstacles such as the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River that require boatmen, or if boatmen are needed for upstream navigation on the Han River, these dangerous river sections can be multiplied to calculate the offset. For example, in the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River, pulling boats upstream for 100 miles can offset the corvée labor service of sailing 1,000 miles by water. These figures can still be negotiated. If they can be tried out in individual counties in the future, the gains and losses can be considered based on the actual situation. "

Zhuge Liang spoke a lot in a very eloquent manner. Liu Bei and Pang Tong were both a little confused, and only Lu Su could barely keep up with the pace.

As for Zhuge Jin, of course it was not difficult for him to understand. A considerable part of the content was what he had taught his second brother using the laws of later generations when he and his second brother were inspiring each other over the past month.

At that time, Zhuge Liang mentioned the difficulties in transportation in Shu and the people's suffering from corvee labor, and Zhuge Jin naturally thought of the Tang Dynasty's rent and labor system.

In places where corvée labor is very harsh, allowing people to choose to spend money or food instead of serving in the military is actually a good policy.

The established laws of the Han Dynasty, as well as those of the Wei, Jin, Six Dynasties and Sui Dynasty, had a major drawback, which was the cumbersome annual payment of money, taxes and labor service, which the people had to do for all of them and could not focus on just one of them.

According to later social management theories, such as the well-known "social division of labor brings efficiency" in Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations", if a person can focus on doing a job, he will definitely do it more accurately and specifically, with minimal waste in the process.

Those who are good at farming should focus on farming and improve their farming skills. That will definitely be more efficient than digging rivers and pulling carts after farming for a few months. The result of doing everything is that you will be good at nothing.

When the population has a surplus of labor force, so much labor will be needed to pull carts and run ships. So we should train professional people who can pull carts and run ships all year round. In this way, productivity will definitely develop.

Of course, there must be reasons why this could not be done during the Han Dynasty and earlier times, which were due to historical and productivity limitations.

Liu Bei had many capable people under his command, and many of them were good at internal affairs calculations. Among the people in the room at this moment, Lu Su was the most expert among them.

So Lu Su quickly realized a problem and asked: "Kong Ming's strategy of letting farmers focus on farming and letting drivers and sailors focus on transportation, so that each can do their own job well and offset the land tax/corvée, is certainly a good idea.

But since the pre-Qin period and up to the present dynasty, the reason why the people have always been required to perform corvee labor instead of paying more grain and taxes is in line with the laws of nature. The people are engaged in farming, so naturally they have slack time, and they are idle anyway. If they do not perform corvee labor in those two months, but are asked to pay more money and grain to offset it, they will not be able to pay.

Moreover, in the pre-Qin period, that is, before Shang Yang, there was no such law. At that time, once the farming season was over, the common people in the countryside would rely on the powerful clans and often fight privately for water sources or other things. This was also clearly recorded by Taishigong in the biography of Shang Yang.

Two months of compulsory labor service each year is also necessary to prevent the people from having too much energy to cause trouble during the slack season. It not only has the benefit of stabilizing taxes, but also contributes to the stability and governance of the local area. "

What Lu Su said was very prudent. He reviewed the causes and consequences of history and the experiences and lessons of predecessors.

Even Liu Bei thought it made sense after hearing it.

If it weren't for the fact that he was facing the Zhuge brothers, which made him feel that there must be a solution, Liu Bei would almost have praised Lu Su for his maturity and prudence.

However, since he knew that the people on the other side were Zhuge brothers, why would Liu Bei rush to draw conclusions? He didn't even need to speak, but just glanced at Zhuge brothers.

Zhuge Jin realized his master's question and began to explain in a gentle and elegant manner: "What Zijing said is quite in line with human nature. His understanding of the pros and cons of the changes in ancient and modern times can be regarded as an orderly inheritance and incisive.

However, this is a different time. It has been four or five hundred years since the ancient thought of "people must perform corvée during the slack season" was formulated. At that time, the country "emphasized agriculture and suppressed commerce", and the people were sparse. The court wanted to educate and guide the people, and they all focused on their own business. Apart from farming, there was nothing else to do. When it was slack season, it was easy for them to refuse to perform corvée.

But in the pre-Qin period, the world's population was only over 10 million. During the reign of Emperor Gaozu of the early Han Dynasty, the population was only 7 or 8 million at its lowest. But by the end of the pre-Han Dynasty, the population had exceeded 40 million, with the rich having fields stretching across the country and the poor having no place to stand. During the reigns of Emperors Huan and Ling of the present dynasty, the population once reached 50 million.

When the land was vast and the population was sparse, as long as the people wanted to farm, they could plant more land. If the imperial court wanted to increase the amount of money and grain, it would naturally want more people to focus on farming, so the amount of money, grain, and corvée must be fixed and could not be offset against each other.

But in an era of overpopulation and limited land, even if the people wanted to farm, there was not enough unowned wasteland for them to cultivate. At this time, what harm would it do to the court if some of the population could focus on changing careers and doing other things?
Even for ordinary people who have to farm, as long as they live in a relatively relaxed industrial and commercial environment, they can do other odd jobs during the slack season. As long as they are good at what they do and the income is more than the deduction money for corvée service, then they can have more ways to make a living. "

(End of this chapter)