Three Kingdoms: I am not Liu Bian

Chapter 43: Army Expansion and Land Conservation

Sandalwood incense curled up in Yong'an Palace, and the green smoke rising from the bronze beast furnace floated between the palace pillars.

Liu Bian leaned against a jade table, his plain clothes making his features look even colder. A teacup rested on the edge of the table, a few drops of amber tea condensing on the celadon glaze, reflecting the glint in his eyes. The anger on his face had long since dissipated, as if it had never existed.

In any case, he achieved his goal of recruiting good families from the six counties and three rivers into the army.

He was not completely unaware of the manifesto and the advice of the officials and even his retainer Zhang Zhao, but most of his anger was deliberately acted out to divert the officials' attention to the fact that he, the regent prince, was preparing to personally lead an expedition against the Yellow Turbans.

Expanding the military is something he must do but his ministers are likely to oppose.

What he said in the court was "recruitment" rather than "conscripting".

Conscription means that these good families from the six counties and three rivers will be dispersed and returned to the civilian population after the war, and only those who have made certain military achievements will be retained.

But recruiting was just a word game he played. If he said "recruit", it meant "recruit". If he said "recruit", it meant "recruit". After the war, he would leave the young and strong elite to be incorporated into the Northern Army.

By then, the officials would have no chance to object. The army that had just returned victorious was stationed on the outskirts of the capital and had not yet received its rewards. How could the officials discuss the disbanding of the army that the prince had promised to incorporate into the Northern Army?

The Northern Army is the imperial guards, to put it bluntly, it is a regular position!
You want to take away the official positions of these soldiers who have just come back from the battlefield and killed countless people, and see if they will agree.

But recruiting soldiers also means investing a huge amount of money!

After taking over the government, Liu Bian went to look through the tax revenue of the Han Dynasty over the years.

It's absolutely terrible!

Due to the limitations of the times, the Former and Later Han dynasties had insufficient understanding of the issue of land annexation and recognized private land ownership, so that the land in a county might almost entirely belong to a few families.

For example, in the small county of Xinye at the end of the Western Han Dynasty, the Deng and Yin families actually joined forces to occupy most of the land in Xinye County. It was these two families that supported the rise of Emperor Guangwu.

The problem of land annexation had become very serious by the end of the Western Han Dynasty. Therefore, Wang Mang tried to reform politics to curb land annexation and many other problems. The consequence was that all the wealthy families in the world stood up to oppose Wang Mang.

However, thanks to the war brought about by Wang Mang's usurpation of the Han Dynasty, many local wealthy families were affected, and a large amount of land became ownerless wasteland again, which greatly alleviated the problem of land annexation.

However, Emperor Guangwu, who came from a poor family, had the foresight to realize this problem and tried to solve it by "measuring the land".

However, Emperor Guangwu's land measurement was not thorough enough, or perhaps a large amount of unowned land was redistributed by the court to the people of the world, which achieved a certain balance in this issue.

Therefore, Emperor Guangwu chose to solve the problem step by step. The first step was to dismiss the nobles and restore the Imperial Academy. Then he established the Secretariat, supported the ancient literature school and abolished the county and state armies to strengthen central power.

After consolidating the imperial power, Emperor Guangwu began to implement the policy of land measurement, successively executed more than a dozen county governors who were inactive, and launched a protracted war with the aristocratic families.

However, the restoration of the Later Han Dynasty was ultimately successful with the support of the aristocratic families in Hebei and Nanyang. Did Liu Xiu have to massacre all the meritorious people just after the unification of the world?
Even Emperor Guangwu's hometown, Nanyang, chose to side with the aristocratic families, leading to the absurd situation of "Yingchuan and Hongnong can be asked, but Henan and Nanyang cannot be asked."

Therefore, Emperor Guangwu had no choice but to carry out land measurement to alleviate the problem of land annexation. He carried out reforms through both political and military means, which indeed delayed the outbreak of the problem.

However, this problem became increasingly obvious during the reign of Emperor Xiaohuan. Today, Liu Bian can even see that the wealthy families in these places are concealing their population and land through the annual decrease in tax revenue.

"Emperor Xiaoyuan flattered Daye, was gentle and respectful with few desires. The capital had 400 million coins, the water balance 250 million coins, and the Ministry of Finance 180 million coins." The fiscal revenue of the Han Dynasty was divided into national finances and the emperor's private treasury. The former was under the jurisdiction of the Minister of Agriculture, and mainly consisted of taxes, land rents, and replacement taxes. The latter was hidden in the water balance and the Ministry of Finance. As the saying goes, "The water balance and the Ministry of Finance are both the emperor's private treasury."

The so-called "capital money" refers to the income from the national treasury's tax, land rent, and turnover tax.

Shuiheng money refers to the part of the money that flows into the emperor's treasury after the country mints coins; Shaofu money refers to the income generated by the Shaofu from managing the royal gardens. This part of the income is collected into the emperor's treasury and is not connected with the national treasury.

Two hundred years ago during the reign of Emperor Xiaoyuan, the world's population was 59 million, while today's population is 55 million, and the country's annual tax revenue is around 5 billion coins.

It seems that the population is smaller than during the reign of Emperor Xiaoyuan, but the taxes are higher. Moreover, the area of ​​arable land is now 600 million mu, which was also 600 million mu during the reign of Emperor Xiaoyuan. However, the per mu yield today is not the same as the figure of two hundred years ago, and winter wheat, a crop with a higher yield than millet, has been promoted.

Moreover, at the beginning of the establishment of the Later Han Dynasty, during the reign of Emperor Xiaoping, after Emperor Guangwu's land measurement order, the cultivated land area of ​​the Han Dynasty was as high as 820 million mu!
More than a hundred years have passed, and the Han Dynasty has been constantly reclaiming wasteland, but the country has lost three-tenths of its arable land?

Historically, after the Yellow Turban Rebellion, the Han Empire had reached its weakest moment after experiencing the Yellow Turban and Qiang Rebellions. The wealthy families didn't even want to perform, and the official statistics showed that the cultivated land area was only 400 million mu!

This was something Liu Bian could never tolerate, and it was also the reason why he had to expand the Northern Army.

Jizhou, Xuzhou, Yuzhou and Yanzhou cracked down on many corrupt officials, and their property naturally went into the national treasury.

There are still 3.4 billion coins in the national treasury. The taxes from local prefectures and counties in August may not be able to reach the court. At the end of the year, there are still 2 billion coins to be spent on salaries of officials. Fortunately, there is still much more money in the treasury of Liu Bian's Prince's Mansion than in the national treasury.

1.2 billion coins from the treasury of Empress Dowager Dong, 800 million coins from the treasury of Lady Cheng, the mother of Liu Hong's tutor, and 5 billion coins obtained from the disposal of the Ten Attendants.

Add to that the 3 billion coins accumulated from the emperor's treasury over the years from selling official positions and titles, and there must be 10 billion coins in the treasury of his prince's palace.

However, Liu Bian also knew that this money was still not enough.

The national treasury and the treasury of his prince's mansion have a total of about 13.4 billion coins, but how long can they withstand the consumption?
When Duan Xing was fighting against the Qiang, he once said, "If we have 5,000 cavalry, 10,000 infantry, and 3,000 chariots, we can defeat Ding in three winters and two summers, and the cost will be 5.4 billion yuan without worrying." It can be seen how huge a money-eating beast the army is.

This is also one of the reasons why he must lead the troops personally.

Liu Bian was not blindly confident and intended to follow in the footsteps of a certain emperor named Men, but he had to gain enough prestige through war.

Even with Emperor Guangwu's prestige, the Land Measurement Order was not fully effective. If he tried to implement the Land Measurement Order without sufficient military prestige, I am afraid that the officials who originally supported him and were worried about Beigong's resurgence would immediately choose to become his guide without hesitation, or even choose a new emperor from the royal family.

There was another point, which he had not thought of before.

The Yellow Turban Rebellion in history became an opportunity for wealthy families to annex unowned lands on a large scale. What if he personally led the army to conquer?

In other words, what if he were to become the wealthy and powerful family that annexed the land?

Every time a piece of land was recovered, why couldn't the farmland that had become ownerless after the Yellow Turban massacre be directly nationalized?

He even vaguely expected the Yellow Turbans to take ruthless action against the wealthy and powerful families!
After all, the royal family is the largest and most powerful family in the world!

　The data and information in this chapter were all found with great difficulty through searching through many books. However, some of them are not first-hand information but the results of calculations by some historians based on ancient books. They cannot be guaranteed to be accurate. If you have any different opinions, please be gentle.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)